why do mushrooms grow their gills and spores on the underside of the fruit body? Isn’t it better to grow it on top so that air and passing animals can carry it?

Question

Edit: Why do **some** mushrooms…

In: Biology

Answer 1

You would need some mechanism to push the spores up and out into the world. Gills on the bottom allow gravity to do the work. So on top might not be better.

However, the real answer is simply, evolution is not intelligent. The mutation or mutations that led to gills being what they are “worked” enough that they propagated. Maybe one day there will be a mushroom with a mutation that causes the gills to grow upside down, and maybe it will work and be successful or maybe it will die out. Maybe this has already happened.