Fungi Symposium

The fruiting bodies of labour

This presentation, from the authors of new AA publication Fungi on Trees: A Photographic Reference, will reflect on what the fruit body of a fungus is, including its purpose (or role) in terms of fungal ecology and what this means for arboriculturists who are assessing its condition.

Biographies:

David Humphries

David has worked on and around the trees at Hampstead Heath in north London working for the GLC & City of London Corporation for over 35 years. He was a contributing photographer to the original AA Fungi on Trees and managed the Arbtalk Fungi Directory & App

Christopher Wright

Chris is an arboricultural consultant dealing primarily with trees in the development context, after spending 3 years in the public sector working as a tree officer. His knowledge of fungi is self-taught, formed from a combination of field study (including discussion) and the available literature.

Ash dieback: What we know now

Ash dieback was first noticed in Poland in the early 1990s, and its detection in the UK in 2012 caused widespread concern. This talk will discuss our current knowledge of ash dieback the disease, based on research that has been conducted throughout Europe.

Biography:

I attained a Master’s degree in biology from the University of Sheffield in 2017, and have also spent time studying at the University of Queensland. I am currently a final year PhD student at Cardiff University and Forest Research, investigating the ecology and pathology of ash dieback disease through a combination of field and laboratory experiments. The project is supervised by Professor Lynne Boddy and Dr Joan Webber, and is funded by DEFRA, Network Rail and The Woodland Trust.

Interactions between arthropods and polypore fruiting bodies

Polypores are the main structural decomposers of dead wood in boreal forests and their fruiting bodies act as microhabitats. Some arthropods live their whole lives inside the brackets whilst others are opportunistic visitors, eating spores and spore eaters but perhaps also aiding spore dispersal.

Biography:

I have a background in biology and have specialised in interaction ecology. My master thesis was on pollination ecology in the subarctic, but I now work as a PhD candidate wit the title "Interactions between arthropods and fungi in dead wood systems". My projects use a wide range of methods from DNA metabarcoding to culturing of fungi from beetles. Consequently, this allows me to do field and lab work, computer analyses, dissemination, travelling and teaching during my PhD. Among other interests I enjoy systematics, sports, gastronomy and literature.

Fungus wars and fungal community development

Fungi are rarely found growing alone in nature but usually in communities of other fungi, and also with bacteria and invertebrates. Since they are all competing for space and resources, antagonistic interactions are the norm – fungi fight each other!

Biography:

Lynne Boddy MBE PhD DSc FRSB FLSW is Professor of Mycology at Cardiff University. She is a fungal ecologist who has taught and researched into the ecology of tree-associated fungi, especially those responsible for wood decomposition, for over 40 years. She studies how cord-forming fungi operate as networks that search and respond for new woody resources on the forest floor, how fungi interact with one another and with invertebrates, and how their communities are structured and change with time in rotting wood. Inevitably, nowadays a major emphasis of hers has been on climate change effects on fungi. She is currently focusing on standing trees, investigating heart-rot in deciduous trees, and the ash dieback fungus. She is a prolific author having written well over 250 scientific papers, written or edited six books, including co-authoring the much-acclaimed Fungal Decomposition of Wood, and is chief editor of the journal Fungal Ecology. She has been president of the British Mycological Society, and received many awards for scientific research. Lynne is an ardent communicator of the mysteries and importance of the amazing hidden Kingdom of Fungi to students, arborists, and the general public including TV, radio, videos, popular talks, articles and exhibitions.

Heart-rot and hollowing of oak

The heartwood of oak is a hostile environment, yet there are species of fungi that have developed traits that allow them to utilise this important carbon resource. Through heartwood decay, these fungi engineer the hollowing of oak trees, recycling resources whilst creating biodiverse habitat.

Biography:

Rich Wright is a PhD researcher looking at heart-rot communities in oak at Cardiff University. He has been delivering educational courses and field studies in mycology for the past ten years and has been a researcher at the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, where he continues to be involved in the Plant and Fungi Tree of Life project.

Sapwood decay in living trees

The natural process of decay development in the absence of wounds is often overlooked. Initial colonisers are usually fungi that are endophytes in sapwood. Modern DNA technology is now allowing us to unravel the complex communities in beech branches and to find out what they are doing.

Biography:

Prof. Dan Eastwood research focuses on the mechanisms fungi use to exploit their environment, grow and reproduce. I have previously worked on fruiting in industrially farmed mushroom-forming fungi and more recently I have focused on the evolution of wood decay processes in saprotrophic basidiomycetes and the functional assessment of the interactions that occur within wood decay communities.

The problem of invasive mycorrhizal fungi

This talk will focus on potential impacts of invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi. In particular, is it possible for scientists to collect baseline data documenting fungal biodiversity, or has the human movement of soil and fungi already irrevocably altered local habitats to the extent that baselines are already lost?

Biography:

Anne Pringle was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and spent her childhood traveling through Southeast Asia and West Africa. After being dragged along on one-too-many birding expeditions, she abandoned the birds for fungi. She was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and then completed a Ph.D. in Botany and Genetics at Duke University. After completing a Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, she joined the faculty at Harvard University. She next moved to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she is now Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Departments of Botany and Bacteriology. Pringle has given over 100 invited talks to academic and popular audiences in countries including China, Colombia, France, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. She has been awarded the Alexopoulos Prize for a Distinguished Early Career Mycologist (2010), the Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard University Graduate Student Council (2011), the Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching from Harvard University (2013), and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship (2011-2012). Her research has been featured by the New York Times, National Public Radio, Slate, and the Wisconsin State Journal, among others. In 2019, Pringle was elected President of the Mycological Society of America.

Management for conservation of threatened wood decay fungi

Many wood decay fungi have declined because of modern forestry practices. Traditional conservation methods may be too slow to prevent further species decline, and a combination of different types of set-asides and management actions is likely needed to secure populations in the long term.

Biography:

Dr. Jenni Nordén is a senior scientist in Norwegian Institute for Research Nature (NINA), and an associate professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, affiliated with the University of Helsinki. She is a fungal and forest ecologist, whose research focuses on the survival of fungal species in changing forest landscapes, and more recently also on the functions that fungi have in forest ecosystems, especially in terms of the carbon cycle. Jenni currently leads a project on climate-change and management effects on soil and dead wood organisms and carbon dynamics, and is involved in another large project that compares carbon stocks, biodiversity and ecological processes in mature, previously clear-cut and near-natural boreal forests. Her more long-term studies on species responses to environmental change (habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change), at different spatiotemporal scales, aim is to describe the ecological, demographic, genetic and biotic processes underlying occurrence patterns in the field. Jenni uses both traditional fruit body surveys and modern sequencing-based survey methods, the latter enabling direct measurements of the mycelial and dispersal stages which have earlier been difficult to study in the field. The large body of information on the ecology of individual species, that Jenni has gained during many extensive and detailed field surveys, has been of use in her work on the assessment of fungal species for the Norwegian Red List. Jenni has always been keen to increase the understanding and impact of scientific research in the society, especially through relevant stakeholder contacts.