Monday, October 20, 2014 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Dr. Jean-Marc Moncalvo, PhD, University of Toronto, Canada
Presentation: The Mushrooms of Borneo
Monday, November 17, 2014 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Dr. R. Greg Thorn, PhD, Western University, Canada
Presentation: Foray for Research: 'Amateur' Contributions to Research in Mycology
Monday, February 9, 2015 7:45pm
Speaker: Jan Thornhill
Presentation: The Big World of Tiny Ascomycetes
Jan Thornhill is a writer, photographer, amateur mycologist, and prolific blogger. While her books aim to make nature accessible to young audiences, her blog Weird and Wonderful Wild Mushrooms frequently features small and easily overlooked rarities. Her work is also frequently featured in the Mycelium.
Monday, March 16, 2015 7:45pm
Speaker: Bruno Pretto, Mycosource Inc.
Presentation: Mushroom Cultivation on Hardwood Logs
Mycosource specializes in spawn production for the cultivation of shiitake and oyster mushrooms on hardwood logs. They endeavor to act as an educational enterprise for the dissemination of products and information about mushrooms and mushroom cultivation as part of a diversified and sustainable forest ecosystem.
Monday, April 27, 2015 7:45pm
Annual General Meeting
Speaker: Pat Burchell
Presentation: MST Contributions to Citizen Science
Pat Burchell is the chair of the MST Education Committee, and will report on MST contributions to the Ontario BioBlitz Program and a new booklet, Mushrooms of Toronto, which will appear as part of the City of Toronto Biodiversity Series.
Updated Mar. 27th 2015
Monday, October 21, 2013 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Dr. R. Troy McMullin, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario Herbarium Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph
Presentation: Lichens: Individuals or Ecosystems?
Description: Find out more about Dr. McMullin
Monday, November 18, 2013 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Dylan Gordon, PhD Candidate, specializing in Canada's wild food trade Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto
Presentation: How Commercial Wild Mushroom Pickers Harvest Huge Quantities — And Why
Description: Ten pounds of wild edible mushrooms is a big haul for most hobbyist foragers. But for a professional picker, it's a sign it's time to find a new patch. Their livelihood depends on securing substantial quantities of morels, chanterelles, pine mushrooms or other edible varieties, for days and months on end. Focusing on how they accomplish this feat, this talk provides an introduction to the Canadian wild food trade. Focusing on why, it reveals the social, environmental and economic values motivating this unique form of forest industry.
Find out more about Dylan
Monday, February 10, 2014 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Michael Warnock
Presentation: More than Morels: Common Field Ascomycetes of the Spring
Monday, March 17, 2014 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: Richard Summerbell
Presentation: What are mushrooms, really? And why do they sometimes have those amazing colours?
Description: I start off comparing the known functions of mushrooms to the parallel functions of other items. For example, the mushroom shape is like an umbrella, and sure enough, keeping rain away from the spores is important. The pileus really shares a function with an umbrella. But then I get into mushroom characteristics that are hard to assign a function to. For example, why is the species Lactarius indigo bright blue? Does something critical in its ecology recognize it using that colour? Not as far as we know. Is it a warning colour ('aposemy'), like the magenta of milkweed caterpillars? Apparently not - the fungus is edible. Is it a fake warning colour, like the bee patterning on hoverflies? Not as far as we can tell. Certainly there's no poisonous blue mushroom that this species is mimicking. Is the blue pigment a developmental coincidence? Hard to rule out, but it does seem to follow a trend for larger mushrooms to be vividly and anomalously coloured. Can't all be coincidence. So what's the blue about, then, most likely? The answer is far more strange than you'd ever imagine. It relates to something more deeply fundamental than the functions of any individual adaptation.
Monday, April 28, 2014 7:45 p.m.
Speaker: TBD
Presentation: TBD
Updated Jan. 29th 2014
