New Fungal "press" release
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 17:40:19 -0500 (EST)
To: Theresa Rey <mycocom@aol.com>, Susan Mitchell <Sachem@CITCOM.net>,
Allein Stanley <astanley@i-america.net>,
Rod Tulloss <ret@pluto.njcc.com>, lorelei@teleport.com
From: lorelei@teleport.com (Lorelei Norvell)
Subject: New fungal 'press' release
Cc: GCARROLL@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU, rhanlin@arch6.cc.uga.edu, ret@pluto.njcc.com,
ded@sfsu.edu, mccleneghanc@appstate.edu,
Amy Rossman <AmyR@nt.ars-grin.gov>, repete@utk.edu,
SLS@FSCVAX.WVNET.EDU, "J. Dey" <jdey@titan.iwu.edu>,
Tom Rude <rude0001@acpub.duke.edu>, Rytas Vilgalys <fungi@duke.edu>,
Richard Harris <bbuck@nybg.org>, Robert Fogel <rfogel@umich.edu>,
Joey Spatafora<spatafoj@ava.bcc.orst.edu>,
Tom Volk <volk_tj@mail.uwlax.edu>, lorelei@teleport.com,
Kathie Hodge <kh11@cornell.edu>, dl@discoverlife.org,
Jody Flemming <jody@discoverlife.org>,
Keith Langdon <Keith_Langdon@nps.gov>,
John Pickering <pick@discoverlife.org>,
"Dr. Michael J. Sharkey" <msharkey@ca.uky.EDU>,
Rex Lowe <lowe@opie.bgsu.edu>, Kevin Skeeters <kwskee0@hotmail.com>,
Dana Soehn <dana_soehn@nps.gov>, lorelei@teleport.com
Dear Theresa, Ron and other Smoky-inspired folks --
I just got through writing this up for the newsletter of my 'home' society
(Oregon Mycological Society) and thought it might prove handy for anyone
needing ideas for copy. It contains recent information and addresses the
changed time-line for the kick-off celebration as well.
By the way, I would greatly appreciate someone PLEASE volunteering to assume
branch coordinatorship of [1] foliar pathogens, [2] soil and dung
microfungi, [3] water molds, [4] animal-associated microfungi, and [5]
VA-mycorrhizae. I'd even be grateful for nominations of someone who might
be cajoled, threatened, or bribed. Inoculum deadline is Monday (although
I'll wait with bated breath until the next Monday if it would get me a
volunteer), and I would like to mention any recent Fungal ATBI changes there
as well.
I also hope someone with oodles of money will discover us soon. We're going
to need it!
Thanks,
Lorelei
Scouring the Smokies (by Lorelei Norvell)
What do babbling brooks, spruce needles, cricket legs, rhododendron
branches, robins, stagnant pools, salamanders, bat guano, deer hooves,
snakes, alder logs, grasses, spiders, hemlock roots, mosses, ants,
trilliums, cave soil, bears, maidenhair ferns, fish guts, mouse dung,
parasitoid wasps, owl feathers, huckleberries, caterpillars, oak leaves and
russulas all have in common? (Besides being found in Pacific Northwest
forests, of course.)
Two things: they all produce fungi and they -- and their fungal 'friends' --
all are the subject of the first every-living-breathing-organism treasure
hunt ever to be held in a National Park. Called an All-Taxa Biodiversity
Inventory (ATBI), this first treasure hunt will be held not here in the
Northwest, but in the southeastern United States. Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, a 810 square mile International Biosphere Reserve surrounding
the Appalachian trail on the lush Tennessee-North Carolina border, is refuge
to one of the richest and most diverse collections of organisms in the
temperate world. Although the Park is readily accessible to the densely
populated Eastern seaboard, currently only 9800 species of the 100,000
organisms (excluding bacteria and virus) estimated to occur within its
boundaries have been identified.
In 1999 the National Park Service, in association with the recently founded
non-profit organization 'Discover Life in America', will address this
knowledge gap by launching America's first ATBI. Park authorities estimate
that this monumental endeavor will take 10-15 years to complete. In
addition to identifying, photographing, and creating range maps for every
Park species, ATBI researchers will attempt to determine abundance, key
characters, natural history, and ecology for each organism. Eventually all
assembled data will be organized and made available on the web to scientist
and non-scientist alike. 'Discover Life' will be responsible for designing
the project, making the necessary field collections, processing and
identifying specimens, analyzing, archiving and distributing information.
Expected additional benefits include educating students of all ages,
discovering medically or potentially commercially valuable organisms, and
revitalizing and regenerating the taxonomic sciences.
My involvement with the Smoky ATBI began last July when I agreed to serve as
coordinator of the Fungal 'TWIG' (Taxonomic Working Group). In this day of
Email and airplanes, it seemed something that could easily be managed from a
distance of over 3000 miles. I must confess that I have since become aware
that overseeing the logistics of finding, sampling, sorting, shuttling and
identifying every organism representing an entire kingdom is probably more
than one mortal can manage, although it can be fascinating. Yesterday alone,
for example, I received a request for the names of experts able to identify
the fuzz on bat corpses found in cave pools and scuzz on crickets from the
cave floor, as well as for letters in support of two different research
grant applications.
So it came to pass that December 14-17 found MSA President (and U of O
professor) Dr. George Carroll, U of Georgia's Dr. Dick Hanlin, Amanita
expert Dr. Rod Tulloss, Duke molecular biologist Tom Rude and me at a DLIA
Planning Workshop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. George and I arrived a couple
of days early so that we could visit the University of Tennessee Fungal
Herbarium in Knoxville (hosted by a very gracious Ron Petersen) and collect
in an old-growth "cove" forested with tall Magnolia, hickory, Scarlet oak,
and fir) on Laurel Creek Trail and among the fir and spruce on Clingman's
Dome. George, who works on fungi found in leaves, collected spruce needles
for potentially new Phyllosticta species while I was unable to resist
little clutches of Calostoma cinnabarinus, lovely southeastern puffballs
that had lost their characteristic scarlet jelly sheaths to winter rains and
looked for all the world like pale yellow hot cross buns with ruby red crosses.
Our Fungal TWIG came away from the meetings both excited at the prospect of
what could be accomplished and a definitely daunted at the amount of work to
be done. We knew we faced a mammoth task: while an estimated 95% and 52%
of vertebrate and plant species are already identified from within the Park,
fungi (11%) and invertebrates (6%) remain comparatively little known, with
only 2250 (of 20,000 estimated) species of fungi reported thus far. Thus
we've divided the Fungal 'Trunk' into seven ecological 'Branches'
(macrofungi, foliar pathogens, soil and dung microfungi, water molds,
animal-associated microfungi, lichens, and VA-mycorrhizae) with each Branch
encouraged to contribute to the ATBI User's Guide, compile a resource
bibliography, modify existing species lists, identify expert specialists to
whom the specimens should be sent, and -- where appropriate -- conduct
workshops to train volunteer 'parataxonomists' in collecting and processing
techniques.
This year the formal inventory designed to investigate and identify all life
forms in the Park will be initiated by volunteers and researchers charged
with the mission "to develop a foundation of knowledge about all species ...
to better conserve and manage our natural heritage unimpaired today and for
future generations.' Although research by individual scientists will begin
March 1, the GSMNP-ATBI will kicked off officially during a high-profile
Nature Quest from 27 to 31 May, 1999. During this time mycologists and
dipterists (specialists in flies) will guide students and other volunteers
in a sweep of the Park. (I refer jokingly to this as "Angels and Insects",
although one wag has suggested a better name might be "Death Angels and Dead
Insects".) It is also possible that Edward O. Wilson and other "antmen"
will also attend (Wilson is the Harvard author of two fascinating books:
Naturalist and Consilience and co-author of the fascinating compendium Ants) .
By May we also hope that transects for the macrofungal pilot study we are
calling 'Butterflies of the Soil' will have been established in the
Cataloochee Mountains. Rod Tulloss hopes to coordinate this important
study, to be spearheaded by Asheville Mushroom Club members. (It was Rod
who suggested that we substitute 'Butterflies of the Soil' for what I'd been
calling the 'charismatic' fungi. This name nicely underscores the fact that
fungi and insects are the two groups of organisms most in need of study.)
The Asheville based crews will sample all epigeous macrofungi -- i.e.
mushrooms, conks and anything else that fruits above ground and visible to
the naked eye -- within transects established in the Park. Collections made
there will help furnish a baseline species-inventory for comparison with
existing species lists. We hope that 'Butterflies' will help demonstrate to
the ATBI as a whole how it is possible to select, train and use a mass of
volunteers who will collect within the plots bi-weekly to monthly year around.
Our Society should watch closely what emerges from this ground-breaking
study on the opposite side of the continent (you may wish to log onto the
web site occasionally at <www.discoverlife.org>). The National Park Service
hopes that the Smoky ATBI will serve as a model for similar inventories in
other national parks or forests. In the not-too distant future, OMS may
find itself spearheading a similarly exciting treasure hunt here in the
Northwest.
Lorelei Norvell, PhD
Pacific Northwest Mycology Service
6720 NW Skyline Blvd
Portland, OR 97229-1309
phone: 503 297-3296
FAX: 503 296-6745
E-mail: lorelei@teleport.com
| Discover Life in America | Science | Taxonomy | Norvell - 12 February, 1999 |