Fungi Walk through Hammond Pond Reservation

I walked around the Hammond Pond Reservation on Tuesday afternoon. It was around 1:30 pm and the air had a slight fall chill to it. It was 57 degrees Fahrenheit and very cloudy out. The weather felt as if it was going to storm any minute - luckily the rain held off for my walk. The main purpose of my walk was to observe fungi, but additionally, I came across lots of diverse species. While looking in one small region of the reservation, I came across low alpha diversity, but high beta diversity. This reservation had many different environments with different species due to the wet and dry lands. As for the fungi, I mainly found them near wet lands or growing on the sides of tree stumps. It was interesting to observe how these fungi would inhabit a tree that is dead. We talked in class on Tuesday about how organisms need micronutrients to maintain life. We also talked about how some microbes will purposely die so that other microbes of the same species can use the dead microbe's nutrients to sustain life. I wonder if the same relationship goes for fungi living on a tree stump. Because the tree stump may be dead, does the fungi use the tree's nutrients to sustain their life? I also found it interesting that whenever I found a mushroom-looking fungi, I would only find one, not multiple. This led me to wonder if resources were scarce in the area or if selection pressures did not favor multiple fungi living near each other. All the fungi I observed had very neutral coloring.

Posted on October 5, 2022 04:45 AM by amyguggenberger