Staggering number of fungi

[Chris Yeates]

Hello all

Finally a lot of work is bearing fruit - I hardly got out into the field in 2010! As the first step in producing an update of Willis Bramley's a A Fungus Flora of Yorkshire (1985) it was agreed that what was needed was an updated checklist of the county's mycota.

Yorkshire for this purpose consists of Watsonian Yorkshire (i.e. vice-counties 61 to 65). Nomenclature has been brought up to date, and of course taxonomic changes in the last quarter of a century have been dramatic, meaning that groupings like Loculoascomycetes, Aphyllophorales and Gasteromycetes have become almost meaningless. In addition I have included all synonyms used for Yorkshire fungi - in published books and journals, manuscript works, records from individuals and foray lists, etc.

There is always the vexed question of doubtful records, and on this I think I have generally erred slightly on the generous - but only slightly. Thankfully many doubtful - and plain wrong - records have been highlighted by specialists already, which makes the job somewhat easier. A total of 230 taxa have been excluded; there are probably more - that doesn't necessarily mean that the list should be shorter, it is of course possible that new species records lurk within records of commoner ones . . . .

The ideal is to have a voucher specimen to back up the occurrence of every fungus recorded in the county - these days of course that might also consist of a series of photographs showing the key features - macroscopic and (especially, in most cases) microscopic.

And so to the figures: the total of non-lichenised fungi recorded for Yorkshire is currently 5089 taxa (i.e. including well recognised varieties), when you add the lichenised fungi (that work has been done by others of course) the total goes up to 5980

To put that in some sort of context - it is well over ten times the number of bird species ever recorded in the whole of Britain; and over 500 more than the total of mammal species on the planet!

So now the simple task of going on to write species accounts for them all!

Perhaps now you can see why I was absent from WAB over certain periods . . . .

cheers

Chris

[NickCantle]

Where would Mycology be without people like you Chris?

Absolutely nowhere. Such an awesome passion, great work mate

[Chris Yeates]

Thanks for that Nick - just done a quick check - I've seen around 1650 of them . . . (gulp)

C

[stickman]

Well Chris, you'd better get out from behind that desk and find the remaining 4330 of them

Nick.

[FungiJohn]

I've heard some excuses in my time but ..

Many thanks Chris, well worth the effort and I'm sure appreciated by many!

John

[SheffieldLass]

And an even more staggering number of known UK ones still to find in Yorkshire. Given that there are 14,664 species recorded from the British Isles, according to the BMS checklist, seems we're not looking hard enough in Yorkshire . Just a mere 8,684 Yorkshire firsts for the taking, and that's not including the unknown ones, as the number of those is still unknown ...

Melanie

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

. . . and that's not including the unknown ones, as the number of those is still unknown ...

Melanie

Don't start getting all Rumsfeld now, Melanie!

LOL

C