Could my fungus exist naturally?

Question

My fungus starts out as an extremely small spore, this small spore will bury and implant itself near the spinal cord and cerebellum, and will then secrete an enzyme that hijacks and later puts it in control of the brain. After getting use to the body of its new host, it’ll then slowly start to grow tiny mushroom that will poke out of the nape of the creatures neck which doesn’t cause any permanent harm to the body. The body will, after two months, produce an abnormal amount of mucus that is filled with many of the fungi spores. If the fungus controlled body bites another creature, then that creature will become infected with the fungus, which will slowly become controlled.

Once enough creatures are controlled by the fungus, then the creatures will begin to collect plants, leaves, dead bodies, and creatures, which will then be placed in a secure and safe location. Once this happens, the mushrooms on the napes of the creatures will spray out spores, which when these spores land on the biomass, they will begin a germination process. This process takes only 1 year to be completed. during half of that year, a mycelium network will be formed through the biomass, which will produce a chemical that assimilates said Biomass. Once the year is up however, the once randomly collected biomass of dead body’s, plants, leaves, and creatures will have been converted into a fungus colony, which is essentially a colony that consumes the environment around it, subsequently growing in mass and influence, but also produce a vast amount of spores.

If the colony doesn’t get harmed or destroyed , then an entire portion of an ecosystem can be converted, with many creatures either being consumed and used as biomass for the colony, or turned into walking fungus spreaders. To describe the fungus colony, an entire portion can look entirely different, trees will be covered in mycelium roots and fungi, the ground will have some hard patches but overall will be as mushy as dirt, any water will be quickly used up, but spread throughout the colony in equal amounts.

The colony however, doesn’t last forever, and every ten years that pass by, a winter like season will essentially kill off the colony, ridding that portion of the forest dead yet full of nutrients, which helps permeate the growth of new life. After the subsequent portion is fully restored, the fungus will begin anew

could my fungus naturally exist, and if it can, how?

Answer 1

Complicated Cordyceps

Good enough for SciFi but I can't see it actually evolving.

Multiple spore based reproduction methods are unlikely, so the zombie bite spores and wind blown spore release in the same species of fungus would be troublesome in the real world.

Behaviour change on density of population is entirely reasonable, though the method of communication should be considered. How does a fungus know it's now in a high density environment. They would normally communicate via the Mycorrhizal network.

The urge to gather food is reasonable if that's the food the species normally gathers, however most insect species gather food as fast as they can anyway, already without much consideration for the survival of the individual. Only the colony matters, so this aspect is redundant. However you haven't stated what species you intend this fungus to affect, cordyceps normally only affects insects.

Apart from the fungal infection, you've described army ants, and for those purposes your fungus may as well be a surface yeast infection with no effect on the insects themselves. If you're asking for it to affect say, sheep, then you'll hit a barrier, mammals haven't been shown to be vulnerable to the likes of cordyceps, though things like rabies and others do significantly adversely affect behaviour.