Mycological Society of Toronto Meetings

The MST organizes four informative Speaker Series meetings a year for our members, in October, November, February, and March. Guest speakers are invited to give presentations on various topics associated with the field of mycology, usually illustrated with slides. The MST holds its Annual General Meeting in April.

MST meetings are held either via Zoom or in-person at the Auditorium of the Toronto Botanical Garden, located at the southwest corner of Leslie St. and Lawrence Ave. East in Toronto. For General Meetings, meet by 7:30 pm unless indicated otherwise. Refreshments are served following in-person meetings.

Members of the public are welcome as guests to attend one meeting prior to joining the Society.

Meetings for 2021-2022

Speaker Series: Thursday, October 21, 2021 7:30 p.m.

Speaker: Anna Bazzicalupo

Presentation: Benjamin Woo's Russula Herbarium

Anna was born and grew up in Naples, Italy. She went to university for her undergraduate and master's degrees in Scotland. She then pursued a PhD at the University of British Columbia. After a first postdoc at Montana State University in Bozeman she then returned to UBC for a second postdoc. The work she did for her PhD was on the morphology and biogeography of mushrooms. Her work on the Ben Woo collection has helped understand Russula diversity in the Pacific Northwest.

Speaker Series: Thursday, November 18, 2021 7:30 p.m.

Speaker: Else Vellinga

Presentation: Fungal Conservation: reasons, venues, and what you and your club can do

Else Vellinga is a mycologist who is interested in naming and classifying mushroom species in California and beyond, especially Parasol mushrooms. She has described 22 species as new for California, and most recently worked at the herbaria at UC Berkeley and SFSU for the Macrofungi and Microfungi Collections Digitization projects. She got her training at the national herbarium in the Netherlands, and her PhD at the university of Leiden. Her main goal is to contribute to the conservation of mushroom species, and for that reason she has proposed several species for the IUCN global database of endangered species. She tries to keep current with the mushroom literature. Else is also an avid knitter and likes to use mushroom dyed yarn for her creations.

Speaker Series: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 7:30 p.m.

Speaker: Ludovic Le Renard

Presentation: Patterns of Evolution in the Fossil Record of Fungi

This meeting will be held online via Zoom

How to Join:

Ludovic was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, near Paris. He completed his undergraduate degree in organismal biology and a Masters in interdisciplinary approach to life sciences in France before moving to Vancouver for his PhD. Ludovic completed his PhD at UBC under the supervision of Mary Berbee in 2019, interpreting the fossil record of fly-speck fungi. Now a Postdoctoral Fellow in UBC, he continues to compare the anatomy of live fungi with similar looking fossils to unveil patterns of fungal evolution through geologic time.

Updated November 4th, 2021