Meetings for 2024-2025
Speaker Series: Wednesday, October 16, 2024 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Logan Borosch
Presentation: A Crash Course on Amanita
A detailed presentation on how to identify Amanita to section, navigate amanitaceae.org, learn to identify common species groups, followed by a short quiz.
Logan Borosch (he/him) is an 18 year old mushroom identification expert and Amanitologist, with a focus on the taxonomy, phylogenetics, genomics, and toxicology of the family Amanitaceae. Logan is currently attending Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario getting his Bachelor’s of Science. Originally from North Bay, Ontario; he lived the past few years in Florida, USA where he was president of the Florida Academic Lichen And Fungi Enthusiasts League (FALAFEL). He has done presentations for the Alabama Mushroom Society, the iNaturalist community, the West Virginia Mushroom Club, as well as other online communities, and was a guest speaker at the 2023 Alabama Mushroom Faire. He has been involved in publishing different identification guides and research publications, and is currently working on many publications and a guide of his own.
Speaker Series: Wednesday, November 27, 2024 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Catherine Aime
Presentation: The role of animals in dispersal of unique tropic Fungi
Dispersal is a life history trait that has profound consequences for the persistence of species. For sedentary organisms such as fungi, dispersal is usually accomplished through the spread of spores by either abiotic (e.g., wind, rain) or biotic (e.g., animals) factors. Biotic mechanisms typically involve providing a reward to encourage animal dispersal of spores, such as the edible fleshy fruiting bodies produced by many mushroom species that are eaten and dispersed by mammals. Some interesting neotropical fungi do not have obvious methods for dispersal, two of will be discussed in detail in this talk. The first, Brunneocorticium corynecarpon (=Rhizomorpha corynecarpos) is an unusual fungus, now known to be widespread in the neotropics, but one that is only known from vegetative mycelial cords; no sexual or asexual fruiting has ever been observed for this fungus, raising the question of how it maintains a broad distribution in Central and South America. The second, Guyanagaster necrorhizus is a sequestrate species, but one that produces none of the characteristics that are compatible with a mammal dispersal model. Data from both species were collected over multiple years from sampling in neotropical forests. We applied a combination of field observations, DNA sequence analysis and phylogenetic reconstructions, and microbiome, genomic, and proteomic analyses to infer their placement within the fungal tree of life as well as their specialized adaptations for non-mammal dispersal.
Cathie Aime is Professor of Mycology, Department of Botany & Plant Pathology and Director of the Arthur Fungarium and Kriebel Herbarium at Purdue University. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University under the guidance of Orson K. Miller, Jr., and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford under Lorna Casselton. Cathie’s research combines expeditionary field work and traditional approaches with molecular genetics and multi-omics approaches to understand fungal diversity and evolution. Areas of specialization include tropical basidiomycetes, systematics of early diverging basidiomycete lineages (including smuts and yeasts), evolution of rust fungi, and epidemiology of tropical tree diseases. Cathie is a past Managing Editor of the journal Mycologia and is currently President of the Mycological Society of America and Vice President of the International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi. Cathie is a fellow of the Mycological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Explorer’s Club, and the Linnean Society of London
Speaker Series: Wednesday, February 12, 2025 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Olivier Herlin
Presentation: Plant response to arbuscular mycorrhizal networks differs indoors vs. outdoors
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi associate with 70% of plant species and increase the availability of nutrients in exchange for plant sugars. Research determining whether plants benefit from AM fungi is derived predominantly from controlled environments that may not represent the undisturbed field environment. To determine whether plant responses are equivalent between controlled greenhouse and field environments, we quantified 9 plant species responses to severing access to the AM network in both environments using a mesh barrier (48μm) preventing root entry but enabling ingrowth of AM hyphae. We found that in the greenhouse severing access to AM networks reduced plant biomass, but in the field severing increased plant biomass. The lack of correlation in plant mycorrhizal responsiveness between environments suggests that controlled environments may need to account for the surrounding plant density, plant community, and the larger carbon cost from AM networks in the field to observe field relevant plant responses.
Olivier Herlin recently graduated with a Master of Science focusing on the symbiotic interactions with plants and mycorrhizal fungi at the University of Guelph. During the past years Olivier has been working for The Collective Forager, which maintains food forest landscapes and creates managed forest plans within the city of Toronto and Ontario. He has also enjoyed learning and teaching outdoors at various places including Parks Canada, the P.I.N.E. project, and at Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Olivier is interested in how humans can be beneficial to their environment and how we can reverse the biodiversity crises occurring on a global scale.
Speaker Series: Wednesday, March 19, 2025 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Dr. James Scott
Presentation: Plant response to arbuscular mycorrhizal networks differs indoors vs. outdoors
Mycology: The Board Game of Foraging for Fungi is a strategy-based tabletop game designed by James Scott. This speaker series will provide an introduction to the game, followed by an open Q&A session with Dr. James Scott.
James Scott is a Professor at the University of Toronto specializing in mycology and microbiology. He is the Director of the UAMH Centre for Global Microfungal Biodiversity which operates a large biorepository of living fungi of medical and environmental importance. Much of Dr. Scott’s research focuses on interactions between people and microorganisms, especially fungi, but also algae, protozoa, bacteria, and viruses. His work addresses the detection, taxonomy, ecology and aerobiology of human-associated microbes responsible for infectious, allergic and toxin-mediated disease. Since 2002, he has served as a consultant to the Ontario Poison Centre on mushroom poisonings, and to Dynacare Medical Laboratories on human fungal diseases. In addition to his university work, Dr. Scott owns a biotech company called Sporometrics Inc. that develops and provides specialized environmental microbiology diagnostic services. Dr. Scott recently developed MYCOLOGY – The Board Game of Foraging for Fungi, launched on Kickstarter in 2023.
Updated November 27th, 2024