"You learn something every day" is the motto of this blog. A couple weeks ago I had no idea that there was such a thing as an invasive wood decay fungus. Then I attended the Annual Research Symposium at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, where I saw the poster embedded above - one of numerous interesting presentations by doctoral candidates.
I discussed the poster's findings with the lead author, then went online to seek more information. There is of course a Wikipedia page for Pleurotus citrinopileatus, but the best discussion I found is at Forager Chef, whence these pix and text:
Golden oyster mushrooms are native to the hardwood forests of eastern Russia and northern China, as well as Japan. They're a popular edible mushroom over there and take well to cultivation, so it's no surprise that mushroom cultivation companies started selling them to grocery stores, as well as in grow kits for people at home where their spores can fly with the wind and spread...The term "invasive" can be used in a number of ways. While some disagree, and they haven't been legally recognized as invasive (as if it would do anything to stop them) I consider them invasive and describe them to others as such for a couple reasons.First, the mushrooms aren't native, and they're consuming resources that other native mushrooms (pheasant backs, mica caps, and wild enoki) could use...
Secondly, and what I don't see discussed much, is their fruiting pattern. Like their cousins, golden oysters are decomposers... As someone who hunts a lot of morels with elms, the preference of golden oysters for dead elm trees, which the mushrooms seem to consume whole, worries me. As these mushrooms spread throughout the Midwest, what will happen to the morels? I have a theory...
Informed discussion continues at the link, including information on identification, harvesting, and cooking ("a great mushroom meat substitute").
Update: It's a good thing I attended that arboretum symposium this spring, because when I was in the woods behind our house yesterday doing some gardening chores, I saw these guys on some fallen deadwood:
The "Seek" program by iNaturalist on my phone identified the clusters as being golden oyster mushrooms.
Now what to do?? When I discussed the poster results with the presenter, she didn't indicate that any reporting mechanisms are in place, nor was her focus on control or eradication of the fungi. This log's location and size preclude my moving it out of our woods. Should I try to excise and bag the specimens for disposal? But there are probably a half billion spores already wafting through the woods. I'll see if I can forward this info to my neighbor on the other side of the woods and to a local DNR representative to see if they express any interest or have any ideas.
I agree that invasive species are in fact one of the biggest threats to Earth's life supporting systems (right up there with global climate change). One of the things your post brings up is — what can we laypeople do? Honestly, there isn't much we can do to halt the spread of invasive, non-native, and introduced species. A globalized economy means that it's incredibly easy for non-native organisms to get introduced to our local ecosystems, and it's pretty clear that globalized trade is going to end any time soon.
ReplyDeleteYou wonder about removing the invasive mushrooms and disposing of them, but the mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies — you're not disposing of the mycelium (the actual body of the fungus, if you will), which has doubtless permeated the entire log and will simply put out new fruiting bodies next time it can do so — so I'm thinking it's not worth the effort.
One potential way to help researchers about this specific fungus might be to provide location data through iNaturalist (not Seek, but the full iNaturalist app). iNaturalist can provide data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, or GBIF (Seek cannot provide GBIF data). The Fungal Diversity Database on iNaturalist is currently collecting data on fungal diversity, check it out — https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fungal-diversity-database — but fair warning, it can be difficult to provide research-grade iNaturalist observations of fungi, see this webpage for more info — https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/profinite/75299-how-to-observe-mushrooms-methodically-tbd-draft
You're in Wisconsin, and I see that the Wisconsin Mycological Society has an iNaturalist project — https://www.wisconsinmycologicalsociety.org/inaturalist — and actually, that society is probably exactly the kind of group who would be working on invasive fungi.
Thanks for this post, hope this comment is helpful.
"I agree that invasive species are in fact one of the biggest threats to Earth's life supporting systems "
DeleteBased on what? A hunch?
Humans have wiped out WAY more native species than any invasive species has, just by turning their habitats into farmland or housing.
Global warming directly affects people. Invasive species tend to directly affect native species, which we don't really care about really. Eventually we'll work out how to kill off the invasive species as well. We'll pave over the world, and hang pictures of nature in a small museum so people can see how it used to be.
Invasive species? Amateurs.
You know, just eating them is an option, right? They are really tasty. Maybe not morel tasty, which I understand, but quantity over quality in the land of the free.
DeleteWOW Thank you for the information ,but you are right, now what do we do with it?? I'll check out my woods anyways
ReplyDelete@Panicswitch, the threat posed by invasive species is well understood in the scientific community, and there's a robust scientific literature on the threat that invasive species pose to biodiversity; for one example, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12485
ReplyDeleteMany policy-making bodies are also coming to understand the threat posed by invasives. E.g., the UN Environmental Program states: "Invasive alien species are one of the five major direct drivers of biodiversity loss globally, alongside land and sea-use change, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, and pollution" — reference: https://www.unep.org/resources/report/invasive-alien-species-report
You say, "Global warming directly affects people. Invasive species tend to directly affect native species, which we don't really care about really." Unfortunately, invasive species are directly affecting people, e.g. Japanese knotweed can threaten building foundations, and some mortgage companies refuse to give loans on properties where knotweed is established. But you also have to remember that humans depend on biodiversity as one of the cornerstones of Earth's life supporting systems — and invasives directly threaten biodiversity.
Or in another example, here in New England nearly all the ash trees have died due to an invasive insect, the hemlocks are being killed off by another invasive insect, the beech trees are dying off from a one-two punch of an invasive fungus and an invasive nematode, and there's some evidence that the nematode may jump to other species (like sugar maples). Trees and forests are critical to humans for a lot of reasons, not least because (1) they produce a lot of oxygen and (2) they're one of the best ways to sequester carbon — yet our trees are threatened by invasives.
This can feel overwhelming when you first learn about it. It may be comforting to deny that invasives are a serious problem. But that kind of denial hasn't worked very well for climate change....