Fungi Nature Walk at the Res!
For this week's nature walk I decided to walk around the reservoir and the woods up and around it. It felt much colder than my last nature walk as the sun was not visible at all under all the clouds and there was some wind. I walked around the area for a lot longer than I planned to—about an hour and a half—because for a while I couldn't find any fungi. There were squirrels and a lot chipmunks dashing around quickly and squealing. I was walking all around the woods, on the path and off the path to try to find some fascinating fungi and perhaps other organisms as well, however it took me a while to find a variety of fungi. They were a bit hard to spot because the ground was covered with so many fallen leaves and sticks and dirt. The fungi easily blended into their surroundings so I had to deliberately look around for them. It made me think that the reason that these fungi are brown, white, and green is so maybe so they can camouflage into their environment to not get eaten. I didn't find any "free" standing fungi that were growing on the ground away from trees, all the fungi that I found were either directly on fallen trees or at the base of living trees. This could suggest many things. Perhaps the fungi grow best near trees or the fungi and trees are in some sort of symbiotic relationship between the fungi and the tree or tree roots. The fungi on the fallen, dead trees could suggest that the fungi may be aiding in the decomposition of the tree and/or the fungi are gaining nutrients from the tree that it no longer needs. It was fascinating that many of the fungi looked similar, however they were different species. Because the species have morphological similarities, it suggests that using the morphological species concept would not be best for classifying species as based on these traits alone they could be grouped together as one species. I looked up a bit of information about lichens and found it very interesting how lichens are the product of fungi and algae working together, resulting in an organism that is different from the two separate components. It made me wonder how different species of lichen are classified. Is it by the type of fungi and algae that make up each? The most fascinating thing that I found was the yellow mass growing on a tree trunk. Evidently, it caught my eye with its bright yellow color and size, and the fact that it was growing on the trunk at a level significantly higher than the ground. Inaturalist suggested that it was chicken of the woods, however I'm not sure if that is correct. I wonder why it is so big and colorful.
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