UBNA, University of Washington - Seattle Campus, Seattle, WA. 2012/5/23

Union Bay Natural Area, University of Washington - Seattle Campus, Seattle, WA. 15:30.

Yet again, we were able to meet up with Joe for another tour of the University of Washington Campus. This time...with moisture! I now am able to fully understand the variance that can occur in present species of fungi based on moisture levels alone. With a bit of water, we were able to see many emergent species.

I met with the UW Fungi group down at the UBNA bridge, and to my great surprise Joe was there as well! Ross had asked him to join us, and he was on a break from writing a paper, so he did! We began our search. First, we went back to the patch that we had visited last Thursday to the north of Conibear Shellhouse. There we saw a few familiar faces. First off, we witnessed more Inky Caps (Coprinopsis) some Agrocybe praecox, and many Leratiomyces percevalii.

We set out along the UBNA trails over the bridge to the northeast, and went to a place where Ross had said he found a nice group of Artist's Conks (Ganoderma applanatum) in a forested region of the UBNA just north of the main trail. While we were there we found around 10 Conks, but the real goldmine of fungi was about 50m to the east, where we found a large amount of whiterot fungi. These included a series of black Hypoxylon, many turkey tails, and one brownrot fungus, Gloeophyllum sepiarium. All of these fungi were on a single log! It is interesting because these fungi were all on some kind of downed conifer log, but there were other logs nearby that were not being parasitized (as far as I could tell).

We found another patch of mycorrhizal fungi below a group of Aspen (Populus tremuloides) trees. These were called Laccaria laccata, or Deceiver mushrooms, and will be an ideal candidate for discussing the ecological functions of mycorrhizal fungi in general!

We decided today that because we have four distinct stations to teach at near the UBNA, I would host a fifth which would talk about the evolutionary history of fungi and their role in the ecology of the greater UW, Seattle campus. I am quite excited to teach this role, and to learn more about fungi on my own!

The UBNA is assuredly going to be one of our tour locations for the tours tomorrow. Hopefully they will go well!

Species Observed:

Agrocybe praecox
Coprinopsis
Ganoderma applanatum
Hypoxylon
Laccaria laccata
Leratiomyces percevalii

Populus tremuloides

Publicado el junio 5, 2012 03:13 TARDE por ablevins