[once_inc]

Add in some evolutionary strategies, and you have the recipe for a good sci-fi book: a fungus in Chernobyl rapidly outpaces its competitors due to its ability to absorb radiation. Each iteration grows and reproduces faster, until it is so blindingingly fast that it begins to outpace the output the fuel rods produce.

The world rejoices as this fungus is perfect for cleaning up nuclear waste products, until we realize that it evolved to function outside of Chernobyl and begins to eat everything it can reach. Mankind launches into a desperate struggle for survival as the fungus lays waste to large swathes of land.

[gus_massa]

They don't eat the radioactive material and make it not radioactive.

[Assuming they use the radiation to get energy [1].] They just wait patiently until the radioactive atoms decay and emit radiation, like a gamma ray, and then absorb the gamma ray and use the energy. The half life of the radioactive material does not change.

[1] I still doubt this claim, but let's go along assuming the best case.

[Joel_Mckay]

Some fungi are already the largest organisms on earth at >200 km^2

Armillaria ostoyae ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_ostoyae )

Consider when organisms must pass, that these ancient fungi likely still consume the host... Thus, on a 8000 year timescale most fungi doesn't necessarily need to pursue food that naturally dies in around a century.

Yeasts are already sharing your body along with numerous other organisms that are often harmless or even beneficial. Best not think about it too much if you are uncomfortable with seeing yourself as a mini ecosystem. =3

[robocat]

Explainer: Armillaria ostoyae first parisitises trees and after they die (or are killed) then it shifts to a saprophytic mode to decompose the tree.

My summary after wondering why you chose the word "consume".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_ostoyae

  rivals the aspen grove "Pando" as the known organism with the highest living biomass and perhaps rivalled by a colony of Posidonia australis on the Australian seabed that measures 200 square kilometres (edited)

[wartywhoa23]

A variation on the Gray Goo scenario.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo

[Cthulhu_]

I'm going to do it, don't click this if you value the next 72 hours or so of your life: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/

[noefingway]

The Blob: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051418/?ref_=fn_t_2

[Andrex]

This lines up with a book idea I've had for like 20 years. Crazy!

Don't wait to write sci-fi I suppose! Life may catch up, haha.

[robocat]

I'm trying to work out how the fungus evolves to grow its food source by causing radioactivity increase?

It can concentrate radionuclides, but the step function after inducing some criticality is likely to cause reproductive difficulty (stopping fungus evolution).

Plus: heavy metals combined with organics have a tendency towards being nasty poisonous

[rrr_oh_man]

Idea is nothing, execution is everything.

Just write it if you want to.

[throwawaymaths]

Aside from the Chernobyl part, that's basically Andromeda strain

[khuey]

Some similar concepts are found in The Expanse for those who have not read/seen it.

[xattt]

Its only regret… not developing resistance to polyene antifungals.

[actionfromafar]

This is basically what happened. Then they became us.