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!!!