Let's get back to our roots and gather again.
Choosing life, acting locally, and celebrating community.
Dear Fellow Myconauts,
Exploring the Mycoverse was founded during a time when the world felt like it was falling apart almost four years ago, in July 2021. It was the first opportunity for many people to gather and process grief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s gather again to reawaken our love of the more-than-human world with the fungi film fest and perhaps find some humor, hope, and inspiration along the way. Let us resume our explorations of creating meaningful community inspired by the wondrous worlds of fungi and the worlds they create.
Also, it’s raining! Welcome to the mushroom season!
In case you missed it…
My North American Mycological Association webinar on how fungi can inspire us to rethink how conservation was recorded and can be viewed here. It was my first time doing something like this so I would love to hear your feedback about what resonated with you and what questions you have.
Upcoming walks and talks:
February 15th - Descanso Gardens Mushroom Walk (Update – Sold Out)
March 22nd - King’s Roost How to Love a Mushroom & The Arts of Noticing Fungi
Fires and Wrapping Up the Second Year of the California Fungal Diversity Survey Project
A stunning encounter with the Blushing Rosette Abortiporus biennis continuing to grow on top of themselves like coral. I made a collection for year 2 of the CA FUNDIS project.
I can’t believe my second year with the CA Fungal Diversity Project is coming to a close. This year, I made 285 collections (50+ more than I made last year!) to document California’s fungi on a state-wide scale. This is the first time this has ever been done! I am excited to learn more about who is living here after the DNA sequencing and analysis is completed in the coming months. Our team of 20 folks made over 12,000 collections these past two years.
Most of my collections for the CA FUNDIS project were collected from sites that have burned this past year. The Palisades, the San Gabriel foothills, and let’s not forget the 23,000 acre fire in San Bernardino this past August where I also spent significant time collecting fungi. I hope these collections can provide us some insight on these habitats and fungi living there to help better conserve and steward these abundantly biodiverse habitats that have been devastated.
A huge heartfelt **thank you** to all the myconauts (and the inspiring random strangers we encountered) who volunteered to help with the CA FUNDIS project—special thanks to Louise and Vanessa for their support on many of my adventures.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into the arduous sampling process.
90+ collections were laid out and prepared for sampling…
For DNA sequencing, we take a tiny sample of the spore-bearing surface of the mushrooms (e.g. gills) to put in collection tubes.
These 200 fungi samples are then sent off for sequencing and analysis by a dedicated DNA analyst team. Results are then posted on each iNaturalist observation and shared in globally accessible databases for others to see and compare sequence results to better understand distributions of species, species diversity, new species, evolution of fungi, and so much more. These are just the basic foundations setting up the field of mycology for further study and research for generations to come.
Exploring the Mycoverse: 2024 Fungi Film Fest Screening Party (Session A)
Monday, February 10th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA – Free by donation
Join the Mycoverse in celebrating and watching for the third year in a row the Fungi Film Fest! It is the world’s only film festival dedicated to the beauty, otherworldiness, and human influences of mushrooms, lichens, and micro fungi. This year, the fest is large enough to split the 200+ minute program into two sessions for us to screen – session A on February 10th and session B on February 24th.
Session A is February 10th, 7p, donation-based, Arlington Garden Pasadena, California (note this was rescheduled from January due to the fires).
Before our screening, we invite you to bring a memorable mushroom / fungal encounter of 2024 to share with others before the screening!
Exploring the Mycoverse: 2024 Fungi Film Fest Screening Party (Session B)
Monday, February 24th, 7pm @ Arlington Garden, Pasadena, CA – Free by donation
Here’s session B! There will be a surprise screening, so be sure not to miss it!
Spores That Caught Our Attention
Pre-order Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s new book Forest Euphoria - The Abounding Queerness of Nature.
How cordyceps is a great example that our minds are also our bodies.
The Fungi Foundation is hiring a bilingual Spanish-speaking assistant for Giuliana Furci.
Yes, that is a snail eating those spores of the aforementioned Blushing Rosette Abortiporus biennis.
Looking sporeward,
Aaron