Mycelium Bridge as a Living Electrical Conductor: Access Point to Soil Infosphere.

Fungal mycelium, a sensor and commutation highway for information in the form of electrical signals and biomarkers, covers a large section of the Earth’s biosphere, giving access to the “wood-wide web”. A bio-hybrid robot with fungal mycelium as a living agent for information collection and commutation is the missing link for data-driven precision agriculture – one of the ways to sustainability. Currently, we do not have effective access points due to the high localization of existing sensing approaches deriving us from holistic data on the mycelium level. Here we show a method for isolating the electrical signals within a living mycelium and characterize the ion movements with impedance and open circuit potential (OCP) study. The colonizing nature of the fungus was used to form a mycelium bridge between the grounded and floating nodes to isolate the electrical signals within the living organism. The average real part of the impedance (80 kΩ) demonstrates the effectiveness of the mycelium as a distributed salt bridge and the fluctuations in impedance (∼10 kΩ) and OCP (∼20 mV) at a predictable period (28–30 h) evidence the life processes of the fungus, e.g. the opening of Ca 2+ channels. The use of living fungus as a biological sensor and connector shows important insight into truly biohybrid robotics. Access to fungal networks enables cooperation between ecosystems and data-driven decisions, leading to sustainability.