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Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

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Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#31

Post by tastyfreeze »

MrVandemar wrote: post #24
ycta2023 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live on the west coast of north america - the last few years following wildfires my mum heads up to the scorched mountaintops to pick morels and sells them. Big hauls, hundreds of dollars' worth of rare mushrooms growing in ruined forests.

Perhaps the "rare mushrooms" should be left alone. Perhaps they would become less rare. Edit: that's right folks, keep those downvotes coming for suggesting actually conserving something instead of exploiting it.

Mature mushrooms drop a billion spores a day and picking them doesn't harm the mycelium. They will be ok.

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#32

Post by chasil »

speed_spread wrote: post #27
MrVandemar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the "rare mushrooms" should be left alone. Perhaps they would become less rare. Edit: that's right folks, keep those downvotes coming for suggesting actually conserving something instead of exploiting it.

Maybe they were rare because forests didn't use to burn that often.

Some do, naturally. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many adaptations to exploit it, thus the subject of the parent post and its linked article.

"In the wild, many trees depend on fire as a successful way to clear out the competition and release their seeds. In particular, the giant sequoia depends on fire to reproduce: the cones of the tree open after a fire releases their seeds, the fire having cleared all competing vegetation... Eucalyptus regnans or mountain ash of Australia also depends on fire but in a different fashion. They carry their seeds in capsules which can deposit at any time of the year. Being flammable, during a fire the capsules drop nearly all of their seeds and the fire consumes the eucalypt adults, but most of the seeds survive using the ash as a source of nutrients; at their rate of growth, they quickly dominate the land and a new eucalyptus forest grows."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#33

Post by BMc2020 »

ycta2023 wrote: post #12
chasil wrote: post #4

It is well-known that morel mushrooms do very well in a freshly-burned forest. "...black morels (Morchella elata and related species) are mostly found in coniferous forests, disturbed ground and recently burned areas." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella#Association_with_wil...

I live on the west coast of north america - the last few years following wildfires my mum heads up to the scorched mountaintops to pick morels and sells them. Big hauls, hundreds of dollars' worth of rare mushrooms growing in ruined forests.

I knew a lady who, her and her two kids, make $1500 in a weekend. Oregon Coast range, don't remember what types. It's important to remember with all mushrooms there are only a few good days a year.

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#34

Post by beamgirl »

wiredfool wrote: post #22
beamgirl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact to add about carbon sinks, peat bogs can sink 4-17 times as much CO2 per acre as a forest and acts as an incredible moisture regulator. One of my more out there dreams is to start a big man made peat bog at the edge of a desert.

This is why we dig up peat bogs and burn them.

Which, as much as I love Islay scotch, is an ecological disaster

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#35

Post by carabiner »

ycta2023 wrote: post #12
chasil wrote: post #4

It is well-known that morel mushrooms do very well in a freshly-burned forest. "...black morels (Morchella elata and related species) are mostly found in coniferous forests, disturbed ground and recently burned areas." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella#Association_with_wil...

I live on the west coast of north america - the last few years following wildfires my mum heads up to the scorched mountaintops to pick morels and sells them. Big hauls, hundreds of dollars' worth of rare mushrooms growing in ruined forests.

WA picked them near Crystal last year. This year it'll probably be near Index. The forest service provides burn maps.

PNW Mushrooms FB group for more info. Here are all the rules on commercial, personal harvesting and maps: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/okawen/passes-permits/for...

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#36

Post by zeagle »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #30
zeagle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if that is quite accurate although it is plausible given the negative effect of hotter fires in traditionally fire controlled areas. I read into this a couple years ago and found published data on increased harvests of morels in terms of kg/hectare after large forest fires [example from looking again today 1]. I think as humans we are biased to think above the ground and think of destruction. There could…

Do those studies look long term though? Increased harvests is exactly what you'd expect from the phenomenon I described.

That's a good point. I'm not sure. Some areas I pick edible mushrooms other that morels have not recovered from logging or fires short or long term so my individual anecdotal experience is no. I couldn't find good data on chanterelles or boletus species.

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#37

Post by culi »

chasil wrote: post #4

It is well-known that morel mushrooms do very well in a freshly-burned forest. "...black morels (Morchella elata and related species) are mostly found in coniferous forests, disturbed ground and recently burned areas." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella#Association_with_wil...

Yes morel hunting is a different type of mushroom hunting than typical. In places that aren't as cold it's even a totally different season. I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest buyers of burn maps are actually morel hunters

Worth noting there's a ton of different mushrooms called morels (though they're all pretty much related and even "false morels" are usually choice edibles) and when talking about the kinds that grow after fires they're usually referred to as "burn morels"

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#38

Post by culi »

chasil wrote: post #20
empyrrhicist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do very well" may not be quite correct. When mycorrhizal hosts die, the organism puts all its energy into escaping the dead end - fruiting and dispersing spores. If there are periodic fires that kill trees, that's a great time to spread to a neighboring area. If giant fire that takes out vast areas, that may be less good.

But controlled burns and fires that otherwise do not cause complete incineration of the symbiotic trees/plants would not result in the death of the fungi. However, with the ground cleared, the spores would travel further. There are also fire-dependent plants that are reproduction-adapted for these conditions. "Some cones, such as those of lodgepole pine and sequoia, are pyriscent, as well as many chaparral shrubs, me…

Most california sages also require the presence of ashes to germinate. It's quite common amongst flora in the California chaparral. In large part due to thousands of years of ecosystem management with controlled burns by native Californians. In a lot of ways California is a manufactured landscape (though even Amazonia has been labelled as manufactured[0] so it's not all that surprising)

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259126195_Dark_eart...

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#39

Post by bluGill »

zardo wrote: post #13
uoaei wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing balanced about the intensity and frequency of fires I urge you to read about indigenous wildland fire management techniques. Also check out the 'forest fire' cellular automata model. You speak of niches as being exclusive, but ecosystems are composed of bubbling foams of overlapping, interacting niches, which merge, split, re-combine, etc. as the ecosystem progresses through modes of dynamic equili…

> There is nothing balanced about the intensity and frequency of fires A correct statement, the intensity would be lower and the frequency higher without human intervention.

Not always. Traditional cultures often lit fires yearly, while non human causes wouldn't be as frequent.

Re: Fungi and bacteria are binging on burned soil

#40

Post by culi »

hinkley wrote: post #5
hosh wrote: post #2

Related: biochar as a soil amendment https://biochar-international.org/biochar/

Biochar turns out to be more effective in bacteria dominant soils than in fungal, where the fungi provide some of the same services. Tropical forests are bacterial, temperate fungal. I don’t think it’s an accident that terra preta (a biochar + ? complex of soil) is found in Brazil. It’s also a reason we have to be careful about global warming. Temperate forests make great carbon sinks, tropical do not. If we tip more…

> Tropical forests are bacterial, temperate fungal

This seems like an impossible claim to back up but I would absolutely love to read if you have anything that would

It's well-known that in general in the ecological succession of the soil food web, soils "start" out more bacteria dominated (corresponding with nitrogen generally being available more as nitrates and nitrites) and slowly turn to being more fungal dominated (corresponding with nitrogen being generally available more as ammonium or other harder to access forms that generally come along as the food web gets increasingly complex and trophic layers build up)

By "start" up above I of course mean after a disturbance like a fire since we're talking about secondary succession (if we were talking about primary succession we'd be talking volcanoes and lichen turning rocks to soil). Therefore, I would expect the pattern to have a lot more to do with the amount of disturbance different areas are exposed to. Perhaps a lot of tropical areas can have intense monsoon seasons, but there are just as many examples I can think of of temperate areas with regular disturbances.

In addition, I tend to think of the incredible diversity of orchid species in the tropics and many of these species often rely on a specific fungal species to even germinate. So I would also expect to see more diversity both in fungi and bacteria in the tropics

Is any of my line of thinking on this misled? Would love to have it pointed out!

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