help with my university dissertation on fungi please.

[kayleigh270888]

Hello all,
I am doing my dissertation on fungi abundance and diversity in relation to local climatic varibles, e.g. temp, humidity, rainfall. I'm doing it in norwich,

I need help 'counting' fungi???
is it best to could the number of visible fruiting bodies? I don't think % cover would be workable as I imagine they'll be a few individuals from a lot of species, and the % would be too low.

So basically i'm asking for the best way to measure fungi abundance??

Any help / advice would be much appreciated

[cybershot]

My suggestion would be to choose a different subject
Seriously, from my limited experience of monitoring (not particularly scietifically) a small patch of northeast Hampshire (Minley Wood) constantly since October 2006 I would say you are pondering the imponderable: There are so many variables to consider when contemplating the fruiting habits of the various species; not least the climatic, chemical, nutritional and inter-species supremacy battles which create a mind boggling pattern from year to year and season to season. In my humble opinon fungi are a law unto themselves, and endlessly fascinating because of their unpredictabilty.

David

[TeresaW]

Hi Kayleigh.

I'm in Norwich and just begining on the fungi front. There is an SSSI very nearby in the Wensum Valley, where I have been taking some photos of the fungi growing there, though with this drought, not much is happening at ground level.

I haven't got positive ID on some of them, I need to get reference books, but if you want the pics, give me a shout.I'll do my best to point out where they were found too.

[fairplay]

Kayleigh,

I think David means they're too dodgy

In fact you couldn't have chosen a worse year to choose this subject as several forays have been cancelled because of the drought (we have had)
resulting in very few agarics to be seen, although you could say what you do find, count as one extreme of the whole picture - but who is to tell what the whole picture is ?

Not an easy subject.

Neil.

Edit: You could try contacting the leader of the Norfolk Fungus Study Group, Tony Leech, through the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society.

[SheffieldLass]

I'd think it would be extremely tricky. Even if you were working with just one common species. I think it would have to be over quite a few years, so you could see how each particular spot varied over a long time as well as comparisons between sites.

I'm slowly gathering info on Hygrocybe on one of my sites. Every time I visit I list what I see, field by field, plus do a basic abundance assessment in two parts i) size of groups. ii) distribution across that field. I don't count numbers as such, because it would be far too time consuming, and I'd miss loads. I just choose the best category. I've not tied it in with weather at all, mainly because I don't really know accurately what is happening there, even though I only live 6 miles away. One field could get a torrential downpour, the one next could miss most.

On one very tiny field I can get masses of H laeta in a brackeny area, but none in the immediately adjacent mossy/grassy area. Then three weeks later, none in the brackeny area but the ground is covered with them in the mossy area. Is that because of moisture differences because of the different vegetation? They get exactly the same weather and they are on the same slope, exactly the same altitude (literally side by side on the slope).

So, in my view, very tricky ....

Melanie

[thebeard]

i'm about to do my dissertation for this year, and wanted to study fungi but yes, it does seem like too much of an unpredictable subject and it is hard to come up with a thesis which would be suitable for the relatively short amount of time one has when collecting data for a dissertation. i'm sure its been done but i racked my brains for two years on how i would go about it and decided to go for something a little easier instead, domestic cats and their impact on wildlife (very different from fungi i know!). even that has proved to be somewhat difficult!

[flaxton]

Originally Posted by thebeard

domestic cats and their impact on wildlife (very different from fungi i know!). even that has proved to be somewhat difficult!

I think you aught to read Chris Packham's views on cats He thinks they shouldn't be let out at night because they kill frogs bats and 60,000 songbirds each year.

Mal

[thebeard]

as long they're not as extreme as hisa views on pandas! i wouldn't be surprised if he ordered a mass cull of cats or something. true though, they are very destructive to local wildlife.

[kayleigh270888]

Ok everyone thanks for the replies,
It's the only year i'll ever get to do a dissertation and I want to do fungi. You've mentioned the drought and no fungi, well i'm basically testing that theory.
But would you count fruiting bodies?
Thanks
kayleigh

[FungiJus]

Hi Kayleigh.

As others have said, fungi are variable at the best of times and counting fruitbodies in one specific area would not really help - especially if there are none because of the drought (in some years even common fungi won't bother pushing up a fruitbody if the conditions aren't right).

Just a suggestion, but it would perhaps give better data to compare the records of a well established fungus group (or groups) going back over as many years as possible, and comparing this to temperature, rainfall and humidity for the years in question. You can also include not just the number of species recorded, but also diversity IE are there more boletes recorded when there has been a wet summer, or indeed a dry summer the year before, etc.?

Bear in mind the human influence too - I have heard it said many times this year that mycologists are looking harder for fruitbodies and are therefore recording more unusual finds, rather than the large, readily spottable fungi.

Hope this helps.
J.