Sibley Post-Rain
Sibley in all its invaded glory
Headed to Sibley with Tony last Wednesday to a) take advantage of the first fine day after a run of rain, b) maybe look for some mushrooms, and c) test out the experimental Missions feature in the Android app. The day was indisputably fine, but mushrooms were looking old, soggy, and sad, so not too much success on that front. Missions proved interesting but so far frustrating. I definitely feel like it needs some offline functionality before launch, because it's very annoying to have reception one second and see something you want to find, then find it and go to observe it only to have it disappear b/c you lost reception.
Sort of after-the-fact question (need to learn to write these down in the field): I think I've heard @leptonia mention that when the soil gets saturated with water conditions become hypoxic and unfavorable for mushrooms. What's the evidence for this? How much air do mushrooms really need to breathe?
Havainnot
Kuvat / Äänet
Mitä
Seitikit (Suku Cortinarius)Havainnoija
kuedaKuvaus
There's Koh on the stem here, maybe a milk reaction.
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@kueda - besides the anecdotal evidence of saturated soils (after super heavy rains, or an uninterrupted week or two of more moderate rain) correlated with lulls in fruiting intensity, I can recall at least one instance of possibly-relevant experimental data. I would have to look up the reference(s), but from the top of my head (thus, likely incorrect or somewhat garbled):
Research was done on BCI (Barro Colorado Island) in Panama - long term crazy-detailed tropical forest dynamics plot.
Leaf litter was put in mesh bags and left out in the understory or shallowly buried or both.
Decomposition rates of litter in mesh bags (measured as dry mass?) were lowest during the dry season (duh).
But the decomposition rates varied more during the wet season, with peaks early and late, and substantial lows during
wettest periods.
This makes sense from a metabolism perspective (most fungi are aerobic critters), but this doesn't necessarily imply that fruitbody production should also be depressed during these periods, necessarily (although it seems intuitively true).
I think this kind of study has been done many times
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