Day 230: The Myriosclerotinia head-count jumped from seven to 65 in the space of a week at Site 1, but snow cover thwarted Team Biota's plans to visit Site 2 and kept us from checking another potential location. That said, Site 1 contains two separate plots where this rare and short-lived cup-fungus occurs. The second plot yielded up only a few as yet. On this occasion, we flagged each one for a long-view photo, measured water temperatures and dimensions of the larger cups. The following day, another Park colleague and I returned to take specimens of the sedge and sphagnum, and were surprised to find that the census had diminished by over half in a mere 24 hours. Were the missing fungi eaten by some critter? Was our failure to find them due to brighter light? Or was their absence simply part of their ephemeral nature? So many questions, and so few days in which to find clues or answers!
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