(pl. cultures)
Terms discussed: axenic, monoculture (pl. monocultures)
Culture, in a mycological context, refers to the deliberate cultivation of fungi by humans (or, sometimes, by ants or termites). Axenic or sterile culture refers to growing a fungus on an artificial medium under laboratory conditions that eliminate all other living things from the medium.
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Monoculture is occasionally used in this sense, but it is usually used nowadays to refer to a situation in nature where one organism has completely taken over an area to the exclusion of all organisms of the same type - - a tree that has crowded out all other types of tree in a given area, or a fungus that has crowded out all other fungi.
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