Download - Fungus
They are not just Mushrooms!King Wong
What are fungi?
• Not plants, not animals
• Macrofungi and Microfungi
• Almost all plants rely on fungi
Image courtesy of Robert A. Samson.
Symbiotic Relationship
• strong symbiotic relationship with plants
• without fungi, there won't be any new plant, vice versa
taken from faslanyc.blogspot.ca
Importance
• help plants to absorb nutrients
• increase plants' surface area
• recycle dead plant mass
There are six species of fungi for every species of plant
It is estimated there are 250,000 species of plant
250,000x6=1.5M1.5M species of fungi, that's a lot!
Macrofungal Ecology
• less well studied in North America
• Less than 1% of macrofungi in BC has been systematically surveyed
Macrofungal Survey
• Prediction
• Macrofungi are more diverse in older forest than younger forest
Choosing sites
Older Forest Younger Forest
One giant dead log few small logs
tree vary in sizes trees similar in size and more evenly distributed
less dense more dense
Results
Simpson's Diversity Index
Genera Evenness
Similarity significance
• after running Analysis of Similarities,
• 0.29 of significance, low significance
Discussion
• Two forests have similar age
• Not in season
• small sample size
Laccaria Bicolor
Discussion
• Laccaria Bicolor maybe the most abundant macrofungi in coastal temperate rainforest in August
• macrofungal ecology in different forest types should be studied in BC
Improvement of survey
• choosing a true old growth forest
• better ID skills
• bigger sample size
AcknowledgementsAndy MacKinnon
My father, YC Wong Dr. Bridgette Clarkston
Orla Osborne Brett Howard
Nic and Nicole and YOU GUYS!!!