Day 263: Thanks to boots-on-the-ground by a Park colleague who found the sedge meadow, Team Biota was able to visit the mother lode of all Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae yesterday. At least 2000 specimens dotted an area roughly 500' in diameter. We now have identified it as occurring in seven places, but nowhere was it as abundant as the one where this photo was taken. At the three sites we surveyed, we found in excess of 2500 specimens.
The new data puts a new perspective on this rare parasitic fungus and begs a larger question: Could Myrio be affecting our native sedge population adversely? Although its host sedge appears to be abundant, we have no way of knowing if there is less sedge present now than in the past. To answer this question, we've put forth a field research proposal to Arnie to set up control plots at the site where Myrio is most numerous, count the sedge stems and Myrio present, and monitor them over a period of at least five years to see if the census changes. As research projects go, this idea would require very little (if any) funding from the Park.
Another discovery yesterday gave us a clue into Myrio's ephemeral nature. On several occasions, we had returned to one of the sites on two subsequent days, only to find that the cups which were present on the first day had disappeared by the second. This made us wonder if they were being consumed by animals or insects, or if they were being resorbed into the soil, or if some other mechanism was in place to govern their ephemeral nature. At one location yesterday, we found that the sclerotium (the anchoring button at the end of the stipe which holds the fungus in place) had detached from the sedge in multiple instances, releasing the cups into flowing or circulating water. Many fungi were being transported into deeper water by the flow. This observation might also explain in part how the fungus spreads, moving from one pond to another.
Questions! Every time we go out, we come back with more questions! At least this time, we believe we have a means to an answer: a field research project to monitor Myrio's effect on the sedge population. Of course that will raise even more questions, but that's how science works.
