SciShow talks about Fairy Rings!

I like SciShow quite a bit, and it's about time they talked about some cool fungal biology.

Bad news for Alabama's bats

For those unfamiliar with how calendars function, I haven't posted in over a year.   When I logged in I found there were 424 spam messages awaiting my moderation. 

I wasn't sure what could spur me to post again until yesterday when I looked at a Google News alert in my inbox with dismay.  Not surprise, but still with dismay.

White Nose Fungus (Geomyces destructans) has been found in Alabama.  It represents a significant threat to the Federally-listed endangered grey bat. 

Sad news for naturalists across the state.

IUCN's 100 Worst Invasive Species

I'm not sure why I didn't come across this sooner, but today is the day I learned about IUCN's list of the 100 Worst Invasive Species.  Not surprisingly, there are some fungi (and two fungus-like protistans) on there, though not as many as I might have thought.  They list five species, of which I would have guessed that four of them.  Reflecting their bias towards macroorganisms,  there are NO bacteria on the list, but two viruses (which are not even alive, in my well-supported opinion) and one non-funguslike protist (the avian malaria pathogen, Plasmodium relictum, an apicomplexan).  Also, the invasives are bad because they are disease agents of larger, more charismatic eukaryotes.  They do indicate that the criteria for selection includes "serious impact on biodiversity and/or human activities". 

Their five fungi and funguslike organisms?
Cryphonectria parasitica (Ascomycota), causal agent of chestnut blight
Ophiostoma ulmi (Ascomycota), causal agent of Dutch elm disease
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Chytridiomycota), causal agent of frog
Phytophthora cinnamomi (Oomycota), causal agent of Jarrah dieback etc.
Aphanomyces astaci (Oomycota), causal agent of crayfish plague

The last of these, I had never heard of before.  I'd heard of the genus before, but I'd forgotten that it's an oomycete genus. The IUCN describes these as "macrofungi", though I would say none of them really are, except the pycnidia and perithecial stromata of C. parasitica are visible to the naked eye.  

Alaskan rust spores identified!

At long last, the news I've been waiting for!  The mysterious Alaskan orange goo, thought at first to have been eggs of something, or possibly the dinonflagellate Noctiluca, later discovered to be rust spores, has been positively identified. The mystery rust is Chrysomyxa ledicola, which causes spruce-labrador tea needle rust.  The spores identified were the urediniospores, which is known as the repeating stage of macrocyclic rusts.  It is common for rusts to produce ba-jillions of spores, especially urediniospores, to keep reinfecting their alternate hosts.  In this case, that alternate host is labrador tea Ledum spp., though the NCCOS webpage lists it as Rhododendron tomentosum.   That name isn't accepted by PLANTS.usda.gov, which is my source for this kind of information.  That fact helps explain how the source of the orange goo was originally so mysterious.  While the primary host, spruces (Picea spp.), are a group that would be difficult to hide that many spores on without someone taking notice, labrador tea is a common understory plant that wouldn't raise as many alarm flags.

Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores, my review

After enjoying Mushroom so much, I thought I'd check out another one of Dr. Nicholas Money's offerings, Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores: a Natural History of Toxic Mold (2004, Oxford Univ. Press). This book focuses on the mold Stachybotrys, which has been correlated with some severe health problems.  I wonder if just including the name of this genus will increase my spam-commenting? 

He focuses on Stachybotrys and discusses the strange intersection of the fungus and humanity. Physicians and lawyers delve into mycology.  This part, I must confess, held little pleasure for me.  I was hoping for more of the insightful pop-mycology (if such a thing exists) that I read about in Mushroom.  I was hoping for more about the common molds that surround us in our daily lives, and I enjoyed the last chapter best of all (about dry rot fungi, Serpula and Meruliporia), not only because of the more interesting (to me) biology of these fungi, but also because of the smirk-inducing humor.

I've gotten to see a fair amount of buzz around Mushroom, as Dr. Money presses the flesh in support of it.  Some of my Facebook friends posted about the interview, which resonated mostly around the finding of a sporocarp of Schizophyllum commune in the back of a patient's throat.  Yes, that is disgusting, but unlikely to happen to those in decent health and good hygiene.

In summary, I don't have much to say about Carpet Monsters.  I would hazard most of the audience for this book is comprised of people with a vested interest in sick-buildings and Stachybotrys (Here I expect a bump in spam commenting) rather than a fellow mycologist like myself.  And for those who pick it up with that purpose, you will find the book to be well-researched, and not overly technical (though a basic understanding of biology is always helpful).  If you are interested in getting your beak wet with fungi in general,  I would start with Mushroom.  Though again, I haven't read Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard or Triumph of the Fungi yet.  One of those will probably be next.

Plug for Forever Wild

As a person who spends a lot of time outdoors, I think it necessary to put in a good word for the Forever Wild Program here in Alabama. From what I've been told, the program acquires land using monies collected from state oil and gas leases (not taxes), which are then managed by the state for the use of all Alabamians, including hunters and fisherman as well as birdwatchers, tree huggers, and fungal foragers like myself.

Mushroom, my book review

Santa was kind, and read my Amazon wish list, and brought me a shiny new copy of Nicholas Money's new book Mushroom.   Now, I have a shelf full of books about mushrooms, and another shelf or two about other fungi that don't produce mushrooms, so I wasn't sure what to do once I had the thing in my hand.   A couple of points in the interest of full disclosure: 1. I haven't read all of my mycology books thoroughly, there just aren't enough hours in the day and there is lots of redundant information, so I don't feel like a bad person (or Persoon?) for this. And 2., I haven't read Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard, also by Dr. Money, nor either of his other books, though I feel as though I should now, since I enjoyed Mushroom so thoroughly.

Yes, having the book in my hand, and having some time between semesters, I did what a scholar should do when not teaching or out in the field (looking for fungi) or in the lab; I read the book.  And what a joy it was!  In spite of my beef with other reviews of the book which had nothing at all to do with the book itself,  I found it to be a good read on many levels (namely three).

It's educational. Even to a trained mycologist such as myself, I found much that I did not previously know within its pages.  He incorporates modern research as well as historical details about mushrooms and their academic acolytes.  That said, the writing, I think, isn't restricted to an audience of mycologists, but is accessible to a lay audience (though perhaps one that at least passed a course in biology).  As evidence of this, a friend who is an academic though not a scientist picked up the pick and started reading delightedly.

It's funny.  And no, he doesn't resort to cheap laughs so much as humorous imagery to illustrate points (such as Angelina Jolie flying through the air into a... not going to spoil the ending).    The hackneyed "fun-guy" reference is avoided, mercifully.  Most mycologists I've met have had a healthy sense of humor, and Dr. Money is no exception.

His views on the public perception of mycology succinctly defined and girded my own.  Mushrooms and other fungi have generally had two strikes against them in the eyes of the laity.  1.  They are bad, agents of sickness, decay and disease, and 2. Mushrooms are strange and magical, a window to the supernatural realm.
As to the first point. There is a common perception that mushrooms will kill you dead as soon as look at you.  True enough SOME mushrooms contain toxins that will either kill you or make you wish they had killed you, but the generalization of mushrooms being bad and poisonous has been exaggerated.  If you went out in the woods collecting mushrooms, and tried to eat all of them, it would be an act as indiscrete as saying you wanted to go hunting mammals in the woods with your bare hands.  Maybe you'd find a squirrel, but maybe you'd find a porcupine, or a mountain lion.  The potential results are the same.  Maybe you find a meal, but maybe the quarry would hurt or kill you instead.

As to the second point. (2. Mushrooms are strange and magical, a window to the supernatural realm)
Mushrooms and the fungi that produce them do have value ecologically, as well as having potential application to problems of humanity (both in the sense of those problems we cause and the problems we face in our quest for survival). However we should approach these solutions with a scientific mind, not by suggesting the fungi have a source of magic that we can tap if we all just wish hard enough.

For both of these points, the real problem is ignorance, and the real solution is a scientific approach.

In summary, if you have an interest in mushrooms (which well you might if you are reading this), then you will likely enjoy this book.  It won't tell you how to identify mushrooms (here you will need to fill your own bookshelf with other works), but it will hopefully explain why you should try.

Fungal news

I've been meaning to post a bunch of pictures of things I've been finding around my home, like those two Amanitas.  We had a week of moist and warmish conditions that allowed lots of mushrooms to come up.  But I've also been keeping half an eye on the fungal news.

In research news, an article just came out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showing that the spicy heat of chili peppers is related to the moisture of the home range.  Why? because the more moist the area, the greater the risk of infection by fungal pathogens, and the greater need for protective secondary compounds like capsaicinoids.  Here's a pop-sci wrap up of the research, which talks about the seed pathogen, a species of Fusarium, as 'the Fusarium fungus'.  There are many species of Fusarium, and they are a notoriously difficult genus to work with taxonomically.

Another article touts another medical benefit of mushrooms.  A diet high in selenium and nickel has been linked to a decrease in risk of pancreatic cancer, so a mushroom omelette is indicated by this newspaper, eggs being rich in selenium, mushrooms in nickel. Bonus: reference to the original article in the medical journal, Gut.

...and Amanita muscaria

Found a nice patch of these just a mile from my home here in Auburn, right near a stand of loblolly pines.  It's an amazing trove of sporocarps in all stages, from the just emergent buttons to large individuals with planar pilei and the warts on the caps washed off.  These are your poster children for the mushroom.  If you see a mushroom represented in the media, it's usually one of these guys.  From the home of the Smurfs to Mario Bros and on and on and on.  

I went out looking just in the neighborhood with one of my friends, and we can upon scads of things.  More to follow...

Amanita citrina!

I came across this mushroom while I was depositing a check at my credit union. The willow oak in the background is in an island of asphalt, and is most likely the host for this ectomycorrhizal species.  It had been warm and rainy over the previous couple of days, and I was getting mushroom vision:  seeing mushrooms everywhere whether they were there or not.  I had a lot of work to do to finish out the term, getting final exams ready, etc, but I knew that the mushrooms were coming up and the freeze was coming too.  Fortunately I happened upon this fellow.  It looked very Amanita-y from the top,  warty veil remnants on the cap, brilliant white stipe, and with a little digging, you can see the volva at the base.  The cap had a pale yellowish green cast to it.  Weber and Smith helped get this very quickly to Amanita citrina.  The volva sure enough looked like a sliced loaf of bread, and the cap smells like raw potatoes, and I got a nice white spore print from it. 

Damn you, faint praise!

I received this in my news alerts. And now I know what I'd like Santa to put under the tree for me. It's certainly not the review, but the item being reviewed.

Frankly, I take offense at some of Scicurious' comments. And I will tell you that I am refraining from expressing many of my true sentiments. My hope is that she someday learns that her fellow scientists share her passion for their own subject, and that most of us have the courtesy not to malign the research interests of other scientists.

Speaking of respect for scientists working in different areas, I recently got sucked into History's documentary series, "How The Earth Was Made". It brought back a lot of memories of my foray into geology, which mainly involved a textbook and some spare time back when I had some. I highly recommend it, and it made me think about some interesting directions for my own research. Details to come, perhaps?

Fungi music!

This popped up in my news alerts. In the British Virgin Islands, they have a musical genre called Fungi music. There is also a dish called fungi, but neither the music nor the dish seem to have anything to do with the subject that I prefer to blog about. It's pretty sweet though, as this YouTube clip demonstrates!

New era in mycoblogging for me

Wow. So with the new iPhone I can talk and it will write down what I am saying to put on my blog. That is super cool but can I say fungal terms like coronaria send (NB. Cortinarius) basidiospore and have it understand? Okay, not quite. Quarts in the area's courts in areas CEO RTI and ARI US. How about amanita? (Doesn't capitalize) How about Armillaria? Hi pozzolana (Hypoxylon) crepitus (Crepidotus) try Caloma (Tricholoma) them out Aloma (Naematoloma) Agaricus boletus from a Topsys (Fomitopsis). Oh okay not perfect but still a pretty funny thing. (And it doesn't punctuate very well, either. Parenthetical remarks are my edits)

Very neat old tymie video of the life cycle of a mushroom!

Spectacular Science: The Lifecycle of a Mushroom from Thomas Beg on Vimeo.

What was the rust?

After posting yesterday, I was thinking about the great Alaskan orange goo story, and I tried to see if anyone has followed up.  Nope.  I was unable to find an answer as to what rust fungus produced that great cloud of orange that had Kivalina residents so concerned.  It is often a simultaneous joy and sorrow to find the holes in the Internet. 

Long time no posts!

I now see that my last post was on August 8th?  Crikey! It's been a while.  Not that I haven't been out and about looking for mushrooms and other fungal pursuits,  I've just been busy busy busy.  I'm teaching a Principles of Biology course and it's taking a lot of my time.  I try to use a few fungal examples every now and again, but for these folks fungi are just something that you put on pizza or perhaps something that spurs you to throw your bread away.  

I've been adding a few things to my bookshelf as well, including Bessette et al.'s North American Boletes, and the How To Identify Mushrooms series.  But to be honest, I haven't been able to look at them much yet.  Also, I got my compound microscope fixed up, so I'm able to look at some fungi on the scale at which they typically operate (remember, fungi are fundamentally microorganisms!).  Hopefully, I'll be able to put some of my photomicrographs up soon enough.  Okay, back to the lecture writing.  Holler at ya, later, Blogosphere.

Strange news

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook; an article about some orange goo washing up on a beach in Alaska.  At first they thought it might have been microscopic eggs of things.  Now they are saying that it's actually spores of a rust fungus.  Rusts are notoriously difficult fungi to work with because, for one thing, they have up to five different spore stages, and another, they are biotrophic, meaning they require a living host to survive and reproduce.  So if you don't have a living plant host, identification is especially difficult.   This is indeed some very strange news!

Update: 8/19/11.  Looks like I beat MSN to the punch! They're running the story on their front page today, though with few details.  Believe me,  I'll tell you what this thing turns out to be when I find out.  If I may stand on my soapbox for one small minute, this is an excellent example of why scientific illiteracy is a significant problem in our world. 

The Fastest Living Thing in the World

Once again, fungi are collecting superlatives. I had to check to make sure it's still considered a zygomycete (it is) but Pilobolus (not to be confused with the dance company) is reported to be the fastest living thing in the world. 

Zora Neale Hurston, author, secret Alabamian, zombie hunter; PvZ

I apologize for the hiatus.  Actually, there have been lots of mushrooms coming up gangbusters all over, with the passing rainstorms we've been getting, and I've been meaning to post pictures and comments.  So what shook me out of my quiescent period?  It was this YouTube video I stumbled upon, an interview with the author Zora Neale Hurston about her experiences with zombies (yes, real zombies from Haiti).  Though she claimed to be from Florida, Ms. Hurston was actually from just down the road in Notasulga, Alabama.

On rather tangentially related topic, I've become quite enamored of the video game Plants vs. Zombies, which features both zombies (not the real but the fictionalized type) and mushrooms! I know I'm rather late to the party with this.  The designers are quite creative in ascribing zombie-killing powers to an array of plants and mushrooms. In the iPhone version, you can cultivate a Zen garden, including a special section just for your mushrooms.  And it's got a catchy theme song you can hear when you defeat the game.

Life imitates art (?)

Mycologists love to put the fun in fungi.  Dr. Dennis Desjardin is definitely up there in my book of the funniest mycologists I've never met.  He named a species of Phallus after a colleague (noting "with permission" in the manuscript), and now, he's added another species description to his credit, which he's named after Spongebob Squarepants, Spongiforma squarepantsii.  Desjardin participated in the description of the genus in a previous paper, which indicates just strange this group is.  At first glance, even the expert mycologists could not tell if the specimens were ascomycetes or basidiomycetes!  Closer inspection by microscopy and even closer via DNA sequence analysis revealed Spongiforma to be basidiomycetes, actually gasteroid (truffle-like) boletes.  The basidiocarps are sponge-like in appearance, and the authors thought the photomicrographs resembled Bikini Bottom, thus the new species was named for the world's most famous marine fry-cook.

So far, the group has only been found in southeastern Asia and the adjacent super-archipelago. S. squarepantsii was found in a dipterocarp forest on the island of Borneo.