As I started looking into the condition of river otters around the world, it became obvious that a lot of the information out there deals with otters in Europe and North America– I would say easily 90% of what I’ve read so far. In some ways that’s helpful, because it means that researchers have been concentrating on specific populations of river otters to get as much detail as possible on the challenges that they face. In other ways it’s a problem, because a giant question mark about otters in Asia or South America or Africa does not suggest that those populations are healthy.
Gotta love that face! Photo by USFWS
As might be suspected, for those populations that we have studied, habitat degradation is an issue. This could come in the form of changes to the vegetation along river banks– a study in Wales found that river otters preferred banks with ash and sycamore trees, possibly because the large roots provided places to shelter (Macdonald et al. 1978)- so the practice of clearing banks is an issue. Habitat degradation can also involve invasive species– to otters living in Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone cutthroat trout are a primary food source. Unfortunately, introduced lake trout are reducing cutthroat numbers while also utilizing deeper parts of the lake, so otters are losing one resource without gaining another (Crait and Ben-David 2006).
And one of the biggest issues otters face with regard to habitat degradation is pollution. Some of that pollution arrives in a big pulse– for example, the spill from the Exxon Valdez soiled coastlines and killed fish the river otters in Prince William Sound eat. The result was otters directly exposed to oil and having to travel farther to find enough food (Bowyer et al. 2003). Some died, some showed reduced body masses and altered liver enzymes, and we’re not entirely sure about the reproductive impact. Other pollution is gradual and persistent– mercury builds up in body tissue and can cause erratic behavior and death (Basu et al. 2005). Otters tested in Georgia from 1977 to 1981 showed mercury levels more than 10 times the EPA limit for humans, cesium, and organochlorine pesticides (Clark et al. 1981). Unfortunately, pollution seems to be a global issue- endangered giant otters in Peru feed on fish with mercury contamination from gold-mining activities (Gutleb et al. 1997). The pollution encountered by otters doesn’t just affect them- remember that people eat some of the same fish and use some of the same water.
Human-induced mortality also has a direct bearing on otter populations– although river otters in North America are now listed in CITES Appendix II so that trade is regulated, previous overexploitation of otter populations in the US led to otters becoming extirpated from at least seven states (Raesly 2001). A steep decline in otter populations was also seen in Europe in the 1950s (Mason and Macdonald 2004). Reintroduction programs have helped stabilize populations and recolonize lost range, but it takes far less effort to support a species in place than to do captive breeding, habitat restoration, and species reintroduction. Traffic mortality is another area where humans have a negative impact on otters– and the impact could create some strange conditions in otter populations- a study in the UK found that more male than female otters were killed by vehicles, which could lead to an imbalance in the population and a decrease in reproduction (Philcox et al. 1999).
So river otters don’t appear to have it easy- they face degraded habitats and changing landscapes, like many organisms around the world. But, being super-cute and charismatic, they also get a good amount of attention from researchers, which means that we may have some good ideas for helping them now and in the future. In my next post, I’ll look into more current research on otter conservation.
Works cited:
Basu, N., A. Scheuhammer, N. Grochowina, K. Klenavic, D. Evans, M. O’Brien, and H. M. Chan. 2005. Effects of Mercury on Neurochemical Receptors in Wild River Otters (Lontra canadensis). Environmental Science and Technology 39:3585–3591.
Bowyer, R. T., G. M. Blundell, M. Ben-David, S. C. Jewett, T. A. Dean, and L. K. Duffy. 2003. Effects of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on River Otters: Injury and Recovery of a Sentinel Species. Wildlife Monographs 1–53.
Clark, J. D., J. H. Jenkins, P. B. Bush, and E. B. Moser. 1981. Pollution trends in river otter in Georgia. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 35:71–79.
Crait, J. R., and M. Ben-David. 2006. River Otters in Yellowstone Lake Depend on a Declining Cutthroat Trout Population. Journal of Mammalogy 87:485–494.
Gutleb, A. C., C. Schenck, and E. Staib. 1997. Giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) at risk? Total mercury and methylmercury levels in fish and otter scats, Peru. AMBIO 26:511–514.
Macdonald, S. M., C. F. Mason, and I. S. Coghill. 1978. The Otter and Its Conservation in the River Teme Catchment. Journal of Applied Ecology 15:373–384.
Mason, C. F., and S. M. Macdonald. 2004. Growth in Otter (Lutra lutra) Populations in the UK as Shown by Long-term Monitoring. AMBIO 33:148–152.
Philcox, C. K., A. L. Grogan, and D. W. MacDonald. 1999. Patterns of Otter Lutra lutra Road Mortality in Britain. Journal of Applied Ecology 36:748–762.
Raesly, E. J. 2001. Progress and Status of River Otter Reintroduction Projects in the United States. Wildlife Society Bulletin 29:856–862.
Found these beautiful otter prints in one of my Barataria Bay sites!
I’m currently in the middle of analyzing some of my data from studying carnivore distribution in Louisiana, and one of things I’m looking at is which environmental characteristics carnivores respond to- for example, is the number of mice and rats in an area a predictor that coyotes will hang out there? One of the species I’ve recorded at several of my sites is river otter, but when I ran a preliminary analysis last year, none of the environmental characteristics I was paying attention to (like the size of an island or how many crabs I counted on the beach) seemed to matter in whether or not I saw otters or otter tracks there. I’m now redoing my analyses with two years of data, and I’m curious to know if my results will be different. And now I’m also curious about river otters in general- I found them at roughly half of my study sites, but maybe they were more common before? And how are otters in other locations doing? I know that they are sensitive to water pollution, in part because they eat so many fish and aquatic invertebrates, but does the pollution have a direct impact on them as well since they spend so much time in the water? Are there other environmental issues creating problems for otter populations around the world, and are we doing anything about it?
So I have lots of questions about otter conservation, but not really a lot in the way of answers. This month I’ll be trying to answer more of those questions and get a better sense of how well (or not) river otters are doing, plus what we can do to support those populations into the future.
Over the past week, I’ve looked for ways for us to get directly involved with eel conservation- the good news is that those opportunities are out there; the bad news is that it took some searching to find everything I mention here, so it takes persistence to get involved. Of course, it also takes persistence to swim from rivers to the open ocean…
USFWS monitoring American eels in Buffalo Creek, Pa. Photo courtesy of USFWS- License Link
The timing is ideal to get involved in many of the opportunities out there since World Fish Migration Day is May 21, 2016- there are events taking place all over the world from now until the actual day, so check the list and see if there is something near you.
If you are looking for more information about eel projects
There are a number of habitat restoration projects that benefit eels- many of these projects are organized by local groups, so, if your area isn’t mentioned here, it may pay off to ask around-
And there are a number of groups looking for your help in eel surveys
I’ve said it before, but please, please, please do your best to choose sustainable seafood for your meals- in this context, it means eel is a no-no (and that’s a sacrifice for me), but having learned about eel conservation over the last few weeks, I believe it is the right thing to do. If you are unsure about your seafood choices, there are a number of resources, for example Seafood Watch.
Eels, and other aquatic animals, are having a rough time- we can help support the remaining populations, but it will take a variety of approaches, including increased protection, habitat restoration, and people deciding that sustainable seafood is important to them. If all of us contribute to these efforts, we can really make a difference.
In my last post, I mentioned some of the big issues facing eel populations around the world: habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, climate change. We’re constantly gaining information on how these problems impact eels, and we’re also getting a better sense of how to mitigate some of the challenges. Once again, I’m largely looking at those eel species that use both fresh and salt water habitats.
In 2004 the Octoraro Dam in Maryland was removed- photo courtesy of USFWS
Starting with habitat fragmentation, we know that eel populations respond to improved habitat and we also know that, above a certain density, too many eels are not helpful. When a protected area of coastal marsh in France was compared with a fished area, the protected area had more than three times the number of silver (mature) eels (Cucherousset et al. 2007), so, if we create suitable habitat, the eels will use it. We could remove dams on rivers that are no longer being used and work on cleaning up pollution. But that can only get us so far- a second study in France found that glass (young) eels returning to brackish and fresh waters from the open ocean exceeded the carrying capacity of the study area, meaning that they hit a point where they were competing with each other and demonstrating a skewed sex-ratio (Acou et al. 2011). So, if we have suitable habitat, we can’t keep adding to the eel population indefinitely. Why is this information helpful? It means that we could restore areas currently unused by eels and then move ‘excess’ eels from locations that have reached their carrying capacity. And since all of the eels from different locations head to the open ocean to meet up for spawning, we’re not actually removing the translocated eels from the original breeding population.
Moving on to overexploitation, this one presents some larger challenges. I’ve learned quite a bit about how they have succeeded in getting eels to breed in captivity, and the information doesn’t make me feel particularly good. It turns out that eels need encouragement in captivity to be female- when population densities are high, as they are in aquaculture, eels (which essentially start life without being one sex or the other) mature into males (Okamura et al. 2014). If you want them to become female, you have to feed them hormones. You then need to inject both sexes with different hormones to make them become sexually mature and produce eggs and sperm. And successfully raising larvae in captivity has, at times, used the eggs of an endangered shark for food. You can understand why the process is expensive, time-consuming, and not exactly positive for fish conservation in general.
As for climate change, we know it’s having and will continue to have an impact– a study out of Norway suggested that warmer waters in the spawning areas mean less food for larvae (Durif et al. 2010). We already have cyclical warming and cooling of ocean waters (for example, El Nino), but warmer waters as a result of climate change would compound the issue in certain years. And changes in ocean currents could push larvae into new areas. So we need to recognize that there are changes coming and try to make sure suitable habitat is available in a wide variety of areas so that, when eels go looking for the habitat they need, they can find it.
This feels kind of doom-and-gloom as I read through this post, but I feel like there must still be ways that we can, in fact, support eel populations. So I’m going to go looking for our options in my final post of the month.
Works cited:
Acou, A., E. Rivot, J. A. Van Gils, A. Legault, F. Ysnel, and E. Feunteun. 2011. Habitat carrying capacity is reached for the European eel in a small coastal catchment: evidence and implications for managing eel stocks. Freshwater Biology 56:952–968.
Cucherousset, J., J.-M. Paillisson, A. Carpentier, V. Thoby, J.-P. Damien, and M.-C. Eybert. 2007. Freshwater protected areas: An effective measure to reconcile conservation and exploitation of the threatened European eels (Anguilla anguilla)? Ecology of Freshwater Fish 16:528–538.
Durif, C. M. F., J. Gjøsæter, and L. A. Vøllestad. 2010. Influence of oceanic factors on Anguilla anguilla (L.) over the twentieth century in coastal habitats of the Skagerrak, southern Norway. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences rspb20101547.
Okamura, A., N. Horie, N. Mikawa, Y. Yamada, and K. Tsukamoto. 2014. Recent advances in artificial production of glass eels for conservation of anguillid eel populations. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 23:95–110.
This past week has been really informative for me- so many things that I didn’t know about eels, and it turns out that I’m not the only one. Although there are a large number of scientists looking into eel conservation, there are still so many unknowns about eel ecology that it can be hard to figure out what is really going on. For instance, we know that some eel species are diadromous, meaning that they use both marine and freshwater habitats during different parts of their life cycle (Limburg and Waldman 2009), but we don’t know where those species spend their time while at sea (Dannewitz et al. 2005). As a result, we don’t know what conditions those populations are experiencing and how best to support them.
These juvenile eels are moving around obstructions on the Susquehanna River. Photo courtesy of Maryland Fishery Resources Office, USFWS. Link to license
We do, however, have a general sense of the issues facing eels. Most of the studies I found were focused on European, American, and Japanese eels, so I’m going to talk about those species here (although I take my hat off to the researchers in Vanuatu who captured live, venomous sea kraits and made them throw up to do an inventory of local eel species… -check out Reed et al. 2002). One of the big challenges facing species that move between freshwater and saltwater environments is that there can be obstructions like locks and dams (Limburg and Waldman 2009). If the young eels can’t get upriver to appropriate areas, then we start to lose succeeding generations- a study from Ireland found that a hydroelectric station on the River Shannon blocked eel migration upstream so that fish lifts and direct trapping and release above the station were needed, as well as restocking (McCarthy et al. 2008).
The problem with restocking is that we are already over-exploiting some eel populations around the world. Eel is pretty tasty to eat- my first introduction was with sushi and I quickly became a big fan. Eel farming is practiced in a number of areas around the world to help meet demand for this fish, but it turns out that getting eels to successfully reproduce in captivity is very, very difficult (Stone 2003). So eel farmers capture juvenile eels returning to freshwater environments and rear them in ponds– we’re not increasing the number of eels available or creating a farmed population to reduce pressure on wild eels, we’re just moving the eels around, and that’s not really helping eel populations.
And then there are changes in habitats and ecosystems. A study of the upper Mississippi River found that degraded habitats were linked to eel population declines (Phelps, Ridings, and Herzog 2014). When looking at ocean systems, climate change is a real concern. European and American eels in the North Atlantic are very sensitive to changes in the Gulf Stream- some models forecast a weakening and moving Gulf Stream which could have negative consequences for eel migration (Wirth and Bernatchez 2003). We’ve also changed the species they interact with in their environment, sometimes with negative consequences- the introduced swim bladder nematode parasitizes European eels, making them less resistant to stress and compromising their ability to complete long-distance migrations (Fazio et al. 2009).
So eels are facing some big problems- hopefully we are figuring out some solutions. For my next post, I’ll look into strategies for conservation.
Works cited:
Dannewitz J, Maes GE, Johansson L, Wickström H, Volckaert FAM, Järvi T. 2005. Panmixia in the European eel: a matter of time. Proc. Biol. Sci. 272:1129–1137.
Fazio G, Monée H, Da Silva C, Simon-Levert G, Allienne J-F, Lecomte-Finiger R, Sasal P. 2009. Changes in gene expression in European eels (Anguilla anguilla) induced by infection with swim bladder nematodes (Anguillicola crassus). J. Parasitol. 95:808–816.
Limburg KE, Waldman JR. 2009. Dramatic Declines in North Atlantic Diadromous Fishes. BioScience 59:955–965.
McCarthy TK, Frankiewicz P, Cullen P, Blaszkowski M, O’Connor W, Doherty D. 2008. Long-term effects of hydropower installations and associated river regulation on River Shannon eel populations: mitigation and management. Hydrobiologia 609:109–124.
Phelps QE, Ridings JW, Herzog DP. 2014. American Eel Population Characteristics in the Upper Mississippi River. Am. Midl. Nat. 171:165–171.
Reed RN, Shine R, Shetty S, Montgomery WL. 2002. Sea Kraits (Squamata: Laticauda spp.) as a Useful Bioassay for Assessing Local Diversity of Eels (Muraenidae, Congridae) in the Western Pacific Ocean. Copeia 2002:1098–1101.
Stone R. 2003. Freshwater eels are slip-sliding away. Science 302:221–222.
Wirth T, Bernatchez L. 2003. Decline of North Atlantic eels: a fatal synergy? Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 270:681–688.
I was brainstorming for this month’s topic and it seemed like it’s been a while since I have chosen something with a truly aquatic lifestyle. Plus I was thinking that it would be nice to talk about something that has at least a partial connection to the food I eat, and then I thought ‘eels.’
And this where I tell you that I know that eels live in water, some migrate between fresh and salt water systems during their lifetimes, and there are concerns about the use of eels in sushi- I think this is partly due to using horseshoe crab eggs as bait in eel pots, but maybe it’s also tied to overharvesting of the eels themselves. That’s about all I’ve got. So there is a lot for me to learn this month. Hopefully I’ll also find things that are new to you, as well- time to head back into the water…
This morel is growing in an area recovering from fire. Photo by S. Kropidlowski/USFWA
I spent some time over the past week looking into how we can all contribute to fungi conservation- since fungal conservation doesn’t get as much attention as plant and animal conservation, there aren’t as many international organizations or projects that are seeking support. Instead, it seems like smaller, more local groups are more prevalent. And it’s clear that a big part of these efforts is helping people learn how to identify fungi. This means there are a number of opportunities to get yourself outside in your local ecosystems and then start recording what you see.
If you are looking for information on healthy soils and promoting below-ground fungal diversity, there are a number of reports and sites with suggestions:
If you want to learn how to identify the fungi around you,
Once you know what you are looking at, a number of groups want your data:
And you can check out the status of fungi conservation in your country with the International Society for Fungal Conservation.
A lot of this entails putting effort into fungi identification, and that can take time- but, in return, you get time spent outside, a connection to other fungi enthusiasts, and a better sense of the diversity around you- it seems like a win-win!
As I mentioned in my last post, there are a number of issues facing fungi around the world. Researchers continue to look into how best to support fungi populations, but it seems like there are some patterns to effective fungi conservation– we need to know which fungi are present, we need to look at microhabitat conditions, and we need to be persistent in our efforts.
This mushroom in our field kitchen was around for 3 days- if we hadn’t been there at the right time, I wouldn’t have found it.
Starting with the basics, we have to know which species are present in a location and in what abundances before we can do anything about conservation. And this is no easy task- fungi are easiest to detect when they produce the fruiting bodies we see as mushrooms, but those are only visible for a short period of time, so it’s very difficult to document all present species at the same time (Molina 2008). Plus different fungi can look very similar, so we need to add information from genetic analysis to be sure we’ve identified everything (Hibbett and Glotzer 2011). Luckily there a large number of non-scientists who are interested in fungi, and their knowledge of what is growing where can be incredibly helpful to researchers trying to document important fungi (Buchanan and May 2003).
Protecting habitat is also a bit complicated. We know that fungi like moist locations, and the availability of dead plant material is also important for a lot of species (Bässler et al. 2010), but those conditions can be a challenge to protect over large scales because fungi are more responsive to conditions immediately surrounding them, in other words the microclimate, than they are to larger climate and terrain characteristics. A study from India found that more fungi sporocarps were found in sacred groves, which had more canopy cover and dead wood than forest reserves and coffee plantations, but these species were different from the ones found in the other two habitats (Brown et al. 2006)- they suggested the best way to protect threatened fungi was to conserve a network of different habitat types. Lonsdale et al. (2007) also suggested managing available dead wood to ensure what they called “dead wood flow”- the dead wood needs to be present as a substrate for fungal growth, but it also needs to form a spatial network that will allow fungi species to disperse from one location to another; if habitat for spores is separated by great distances, we could end up with isolated populations that are very vulnerable to local changes.
And one of the most important tasks is to make fungi conservation something that is a regular part of the discussion. Minter (2011) suggested that the way we tend to speak about biodiversity is part of the issue- “flora and fauna” doesn’t make a case for fungi. It’s also true that conversations about conservation planning don’t automatically include consideration of fungi- researchers working with fungi conservation in the Pacific Northwest found it necessary to keep reminding decision-makers that fungi were included in conservation efforts (Molina 2008).
Fungi conservation is an important part of ecosystem conservation, but we’re still learning how best to go about it. And the lack of attention to fungi in general tends to make efforts more complicated, but we are getting more information all of the time. There’s also a lot of promise for collaboration between amateur and professional fungi enthusiasts. Even if we don’t know a great deal about fungi, there are probably things we can all do to help fungi conservation- for my final post of the month, I’ll see what I can find in terms of public involvement.
Works cited:
Bässler C, Müller J, Dziock F, Brandl R. 2010. Effects of resource availability and climate on the diversity of wood-decaying fungi. J. Ecol. 98:822–832.
Brown N, Bhagwat S, Watkinson S. 2006. Macrofungal diversity in fragmented and disturbed forests of the Western Ghats of India. J. Appl. Ecol. 43:11–17.
Buchanan PK, May TW. 2003. Conservation of New Zealand and Australian fungi. N. Z. J. Bot. 41:407–421.
Hibbett D, Glotzer D. 2011. Where are all the undocumented fungal species? A study of Mortierella demonstrates the need for sequence-based classification. New Phytol. 191:592–596.
Lonsdale D, Pautasso M, Holdenrieder O. 2007. Wood-decaying fungi in the forest: conservation needs and management options. Eur. J. For. Res. 127:1–22.
Minter D. 2011. Fungal conservation needs help from botanists. Plant Biosyst. – Int. J. Deal. Asp. Plant Biol. 145:945–949.
Molina R. 2008. Protecting rare, little known, old-growth forest-associated fungi in the Pacific Northwest USA: a cast study in fungal conservation. Mycol. Res. 112:613–638.
A brief search through the literature resulted in quite a few studies and even a few books about fungi conservation, so I feel pretty confident in saying that people are paying attention to this issue. At the same time, a lot of that effort seems to be coming from the last 20 years, so it hasn’t always been on everyone’s conservation radar. And although fungi conservation efforts now seem to encompass the globe, a large proportion of current information comes from one continent: Europe.
I found this fungus growing in a managed pine forest.
The European Council for the Conservation of Fungi started collecting data and assessing species’ situations in the 1980s (Courtecuisse 2001). Following two meetings in 1991 and 1992 plus the recognition that across northern and central Europe fungi communities were changing dramatically, country-specific efforts in Europe to document native fungi presence and population trends accelerated (Venturella et al. 1997). Researchers in other locations were also recognizing the need to protect fungi- for example in 1994 234 species were listed for protection in the Pacific Northwest (Molina 2008)- but the bulk of the effort has been in Europe, such that a review of fungi conservation in 2014 found that 33 of 35 Red Lists of threatened and endangered fungi are from Europe (Heilmann-Clausen et al. 2014). What are the threats to fungi? It’s the same laundry list we’ve seen with other organisms: habitat degradation and loss, climate change, and pollution. And with regard to pollution, the issue is not just toxic chemicals, but also use of fertilizer– grassland fungi in Ireland, for example, are found in low-nutrient soils, and when fertilizers are applied to the soil, it becomes too rich for most species (McHugh et al. 2001)- these effects can persist for decades.
Why should we care about fungi? Well, they are pretty important members of the ecosystems around us- more important than I had realized, actually. Aside from our ability to use some of them as food [more than 1100 species collected for food and medicinal uses around the world (Boa 2004)], they are an important food source for a number of small mammals in boreal and eucalypt forests (Mcilwee and Johnson 1998). They are also important as food and shelter to fire-dependent insects (Wikars 2001) and are even cultivated and harvested by some species of ants (Mueller et al. 2001). Although people may tend to think about fungi as dirty and even deadly organisms, they are often vital to ecosystems in their roles as decomposers, making carbon and other nutrients available to living organisms (Stenlid and Gustafsson 2001). A number of species are necessary for germinated orchid seeds to establish as seedlings and grow into adults (McCormick et al. 2006), and a majority of land plants in general get nutrients from root-mycorrhizal associations in the soil. As it turns out, these plant-fungus partnerships are more beneficial to the plants than we had originally thought- a review of plant pathogen and pest studies found that plants with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi were better able to resist fungal diseases and nematodes (Borowicz 2001).
So fungi are an important part of our world, and we’re becoming aware that, like many other organisms, they are under threat from habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. We’re probably also becoming aware of ways to better monitor and protect fungi, too. For my next post, I’ll look into efforts to support fungi populations around the globe.
Works cited:
Boa E. 2004. Wild edible fungi: a global overview of their use and importance to people. Rome: FAO
Borowicz VA. 2001. Do Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Alter Plant-Pathogen Relations? Ecology 82:3057–3068.
Courtecuisse R. 2001. Current trends and perspectives for the global conservation of fungi. In: Moore D, Nauta MM, Evans SE, Rotheroe M, editors. Fungal Conservation: Issues and Solutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 7–18.
Heilmann-Clausen J, Barron ES, Boddy L, Dahlberg A, Griffith GW, Norden J, Ovaskainen O, Perini C, Senn-Irlet B, Halme P. 2014. A fungal perspective on conservation biology. Conserv. Biol. 29:61–68.
McCormick MK, Whigham DF, Sloan D, O’Malley K, Hodkinson B. 2006. Orchid–Fungus Fidelity: A Marriage Meant to Last? Ecology 87:903–911.
McHugh R, Mitchel D, Wright M, Anderson R. 2001. The fungi of Irish grassland and their value for nature conservation. Biol. Environ. Proc. R. Ir. Acad. 101B:225–243.
Mcilwee AP, Johnson CN. 1998. The contribution of fungus to the diets of three mycophagous marsupials in Eucalyptus forests, revealed by stable isotope analysis. Funct. Ecol. 12:223–231.
Molina R. 2008. Protecting rare, little known, old-growth forest-associated fungi in the Pacific Northwest USA: a cast study in fungal conservation. Mycol. Res. 112:613–638.
Mueller UG, Schultz TR, Currie CR, Adams RMM, Malloch D. 2001. The Origin of the Attine Ant-Fungus Mutualism. Q. Rev. Biol. 76:169–197.
Stenlid J, Gustafsson M. 2001. Are Rare Wood Decay Fungi Threatened by Inability to Spread? Ecol. Bull. 49:85–91.
Venturella G, Perini C, Barluzzi C, Pacioni G, Bernicchia A, Padovan F, Quadraccia L, Onofri S. 1997. Towards a Red Data List of fungi for Italy. Bocconea 5:867–872.
Wikars L-O. 2001. The Wood-Decaying Fungus Daldinia loculata (Xylariaceae) as an Indicator of Fire-Dependent Insects. Ecol. Bull. 49:263–268.
The rewards of mushroom picking in the Czech Republic- but is it sustainable?
I’m currently teaching some introductory biology labs and we’ve begun an overview of the diversity of life on earth, starting with protists and other small organisms- my blog tends to focus on the larger organisms that you can see easily without microscopes, and I think there’s a tendency to prioritize those species over the ones that seem small or invisible, even when we are surrounded by them. That seems like a pretty massive disservice to the many, many species that very, very small- hoping to partly correct for this bias, I’m going to step away from the animals and the plants for a moment, and look at a third kingdom.
This month I’ll be exploring fungi conservation around the world- and this is a topic that is entirely new to me. Aside from seeing pictures in nature magazines and occasionally finding them along hiking trails, pretty much my entire experience with fungi comes from cooking with mushrooms- delicious, but not exactly conservation-minded. Although I imagine that fungi face many of the same challenges as plants and animals, such as habitat loss, overexploitation, and climate change, I really don’t know how intense or how well-studied those pressures are, so this is going to be exploration of the unknown. But I think it’s time for me to expand the species I think about when I think about conservation issues.
