Project Update 1: Fieldwork has commenced!

Fieldwork for the Philadelphia Mycology Club's FunDiS project began in July with a number of small forays to different parks within Philadelphia. A small core group of participants has developed, and with this summers significant rainfall that group has made a nice dent into the list of species that needs to be collected for this project.

Another significant contribution to this project was realized when @mycophil3 made an early comment to me that I needed to "let the fungi come to me". That thought led me to decide on the use of an iNaturalist collection project. I added all of the species that this study seeks to document into the project requirements and immediately collected a number of Research Grade observations within the city. This quickly added a sizable chunk of data to our study.

Finally, I am playing around with the idea of using short "hit lists" for species that I suspect may be currently fruiting. The PMC has a robust Facebook group, so when I suspect something might be found in the city, I will put a photo and description of it on the Facebook group in order to get many immediate eyes on the ground. I have tried this once so far, asking PMC members to look for Tylopilus badiceps (I had just seen it recently in neighboring Bucks County). Atheen Huss (@athena3) responded within a day with an observation in Wissahickon Valley Park! This was particularly satisfying as the holotype of T. badiceps was collected in nearby West Philadelphia! A victory for the fungi!

By the numbers, using both this iNat project and our collecting group, we have documented 30 of the 95 species we are seeking within Philadelphia! Our collecting group has vouchered 9 collections for accession into the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel. I am excited to see what the end of summer and the fall will yield!

Posted on August 30, 2020 05:42 PM by mycofreak