Ecological question about Cortinarius

[Geoff23]

I'm going through my new copy of Phillips' book, and I'm struck by something odd about the Cortinarius mushrooms. Why are there so many which are rare, or very rare, and yet so many of them? It's a huge group of mushrooms, but almost none of them are common and most of them seem to be endangered. Are they just very specialised or is there another explanation for this?

Why are so many mushrooms in this group barely hanging on instead of just dying out?

[SheffieldLass]

One reason may be that Cortinarius are notoriously hard to identify to species level, which may make them appear to be more rare than they are if they are being rarely recorded ..... The Basidiomycota checklist Basidiomycota Checklist-Online - Name Search Page is good at pointing out when fungi species are rarely reported but thought not to be rare, so have a flick through that.

Melanie

[ManwithNoname]

Originally Posted by Geoff23

Why are so many mushrooms in this group barely hanging on instead of just dying out?

It's complicated. It depends where you are looking, for one thing. Many of the species are more common in mainland Europe and Scandinavia. We don't have the right habitat, or enough of the right habitat.

Also, a fungus may be present but not reproducing so you wouldn't know it was there. Some species may have very particular requirements for producing 'fruiting bodies' which are not met very often in the British climate or in our ecological conditions.

[Nick_in_Scotland]

Cortinarius collinitus seems to be pretty common here in the spruce forests. Three years ago I saw them in astonishing numbers in one such forest and they were quite beautiful with the yellow caps, blue stems and contrasting with equal numbers of red capped Russulas.

[Geoff23]

Thanks for the answers.