What we learn from mushrooms: natural history data as a resource in fungal ecology

Abstract

Through their diverse ecological roles as mutualists, saprotrophs, and pathogens, fungi play a fundamental role in mediating forest carbon capture. Understanding fungal responses to global environmental change is therefore central to predicting forest feedbacks to accumulating atmospheric carbon dioxide. Short term research that isolates drivers of environmental change are common, despite knowledge that drivers of environmental change interact, producing emergent effects at multidecadal timescales. Similarly, existing research typically isolates fungal responses, though fungal activity is contingent on the activity of other organisms, particularly plants. In this context, I sought to produce research in my doctoral thesis that integrated plant and fungal responses to environmental change using natural history data. The use of herbarium collections and field surveys of fungal sporocarps (mushrooms) enables analysis spanning multiple decades, which can capture the cumulative effects of multiple drivers of environmental change. Together, my thesis hinges on documentation of fungi and plants in their natural environment, often called natural history data, and highlights the promising potential for using this approach in global change research.