Where: Private Land in New Lebanon (you will receive directions once you have registered)
With the wrapping up of the Field Guide, we have felt that there are a few habitats that deserve more attention and care. These include our “ancient forests,” which are forests that have never been fully cleared for agriculture and whose soils have never been plowed. They might have been farm woodlots (providing timber and firewood), wooded pastures, or were perhaps just too difficult to access. They usually lack old-growth characteristics (for example, the individual trees might not be particularly large) and often blend in with our county’s matrix of young, post-agricultural forests. However, we believe these ancient forests might be islands of resilience and native biodiversity that need to be protected.
This year we have begun a pilot study to compare the biodiversity of certain taxa in ancient forests versus the younger, post-agricultural forests that make up most of the county. One of the taxa we are curious about is fungi, specifically macrofungi, and especially mycorrhizal species. During this mushroom walk, we will be looking for and identifying mushrooms while discussing the role of fungi in forest ecosystems and some of the observations we’ve made so far in this pilot study.
The walk will take place on private land in New Lebanon, where we can compare the mushrooms in an ancient and a neighboring a post-agricultural forest. This is a free event and we request registration by emailing jlaing@hawthornevalley.org if you would like to attend.