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I’ve been on a couple of forays now and spent a bit of time looking at fungi in my local area. The number I keep encountering is 15000 UK spp. Now I am aware that this covers a wide range of different fungal groupings. Can somebody please give some indication of how this 15000 is split between the groups or point me to somewhere that I can find this information. The reason I ask is, I have been advised to start putting the macrofungi I find into genera groups. For this I feel I need a field guide (I’m not getting on particularly well with the BMS key, I got on better with the morphing mushroom identifier online). I don’t want to get something that covers a tiny fraction of the macrofungi because, as I progress it will become redundant. However, without knowing how many there are, I cannot make an informed guess as to how comprehensive it is. I see the guides labelled as complete/comprehensive cover about 2500 spp.
Many thanks.
Simon Horsnall wrote:I’ve been on a couple of forays now and spent a bit of time looking at fungi in my local area. The number I keep encountering is 15000 UK spp. Now I am aware that this covers a wide range of different fungal groupings. Can somebody please give some indication of how this 15000 is split between the groups or point me to somewhere that I can find this information.
The reason I ask is, I have been advised to start putting the macrofungi I find into genera groups. For this I feel I need a field guide (I’m not getting on particularly well with the BMS key, I got on better with the morphing mushroom identifier online). I don’t want to get something that covers a tiny fraction of the macrofungi because, as I progress it will become redundant. However, without knowing how many there are, I cannot make an informed guess as to how comprehensive it is. I see the guides labelled as complete/comprehensive cover about 2500 spp.
Many thanks.
ALL field guides only have a tiny fraction of the available species. They claim to be complete/comprehensive which is total crap. Experts have racks of bookshelves of specialist literature in order to be comprehensive.
There is a list of more popular field guides here
http://fungi.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=156http://fungi.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=156” class=”bbcode_url”> The Collins (Sterry & Hughes) is a popular one as it fits easily in a backpack, but only has top shot photos, which is a serious flaw. I prefer the Michael Jordan “Encyclopedia” but this is a bit big for a field guide, but at least shows top and gills shots. It is criticised for being dated, but the same can be said for the Collins book.
The out of print Funga Nordica is the only book that gets close to being comprehensive for mushrooms & toadstools (3,500 species in Northern Europe), and this is a 2 volume 1000 page book with no photos, just line drawings of microscopic details.
So to answer the first question, there are more microfungi than macrofungi. Funga Nordica only covers some of the basidiomycota. From Wikipedia, you then have the Ascomycota, Microsporidia, Chytridiomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Neocallimastigomycota, Glomeromycota.
A general guide such as Jordan or Phillips will cover most of the species that you come across most often. Most specimens in Phillips were examined by a respected mycologist or mycologists, reducing the likelihood of error. Jordan has a bit more microscopic detail which can be important, but both guides suffer the failings of all popular guides i.e. brief descriptions, and often not clear about the distinguishing features. As Adam says, you really need access to a wide range of often expensive books, and as he says Funga Nordica is perhaps the bargain buy once you have acquired a general guide. But species count is not necessarily a good measure of quality. Some good popular guides such as this one have less species:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mushroom-Book-Thomas-Laesse/dp/0789410737 The above has more information on what to look for when examining a specimen, so it is ideal for those starting out in amateur mycology.
One good tip is to look in bargain basement bookshops, which often sell popular fungi guides at very low prices. The recent Collins guide was going for £5 at one local shop, for example.
Adam has pointed you at a collection of good links to the more reliable online web sites. I tend to use more than one source if at all possible.
(Adam, it would be convenient to append suggestions from others onto the first post, saves reading through them all, but preserve the other posts obviously. Aren’t I kind suggesting yet more work for you? )
Oh yes, and if you want to buy the more expensive books, Andreas Gminder is a good source. There is also this shop:
Leif wrote:(Adam, it would be convenient to append suggestions from others onto the first post, saves reading through them all, but preserve the other posts obviously. Aren’t I kind suggesting yet more work for you? )
I’ve just added Roy’s list of group-specific sites
Leif wrote:Oh yes, and if you want to buy the more expensive books, Andreas Gminder is a good source. There is also this shop:
http://www.pemberleybooks.com/ Hmm, Cortinarius Flora Photographica would look good on my coffee table, along with Fungi of Switzerland. must ask the bank for a loan !
Thanks for the swift response. I feel I’m starting to get to the bottom of the question. Perhaps it wasn’t clearly stated. I see a field guide with say 2500 spp in it. My only reference is the 15000 spp on the checklist. So I say it covers a mere 17% of the list. That’s not a fair comparison if there are 3000 “toadstools” and 12000 microfungi which it is not aiming to cover. It’s that sort of breakdown I was looking for. I take on board everybody’s comments about a range of literature being needed to ID fungi. I’m never going to be an expert mycologist (nor even a talented amateur). I just hope one day there are some species I will be able to recognise with a degree of confidence (beyond my current
Amanita muscaria). What are people’s thoughts on MycoKey? Is it an electronic version of Funga Nordica?
Simon Horsnall wrote:Thanks for the swift response. I feel I’m starting to get to the bottom of the question. Perhaps it wasn’t clearly stated. I see a field guide with say 2500 spp in it. My only reference is the 15000 spp on the checklist. So I say it covers a mere 17% of the list. That’s not a fair comparison if there are 3000 “toadstools” and 12000 microfungi which it is not aiming to cover. It’s that sort of breakdown I was looking for.
I take on board everybody’s comments about a range of literature being needed to ID fungi. I’m never going to be an expert mycologist (nor even a talented amateur). I just hope one day there are some species I will be able to recognise with a degree of confidence (beyond my current
Amanita muscaria). What are people’s thoughts on MycoKey? Is it an electronic version of Funga Nordica?
According to Wikipedia, estimates of the worldwide number of fungi species are 1.5 – 5 million. Of this there are an estimated 64,000 species of ascomycetes and 31,000 species of basidiomycetes. These are the two phyla fungi enthusiasts are most interested in.
I’ve only used the free version of Mycokey which only goes to genus. It’s very different to Funga Nordica as it only looks at a small number of macroscopic characters, whereas the books uses a huge number of macro, micro, ecological and chemical properties.
All the field guides (I can think of) split based on spore colour. If you always think “spore colour” first, you can get straight to the section of the guidebook you need.
Thanks Adam. It is smell that will always let me down (nasty accident with a bottle of concentrated ammonia). Yesterday I was less than convinced by the following: Lactarius glyciosmus, Mycena pura, Mycena leptocephala(I got that a bit), Clitocybe fragransand Clitocybe phaeophthalma. Simon Horsnall wrote:Thanks Adam. It is smell that will always let me down (nasty accident with a bottle of concentrated ammonia). Yesterday I was less than convinced by the following:
Lactarius glyciosmus, Mycena pura, Mycena leptocephala(I got that a bit), Clitocybe fragransand Clitocybe phaeophthalma. I’m not greating at smelling things. I found a Tricholoma sulphureum yesterday; that was an easy one! I’m OK with aniseed, and phenolic, but struggle with Pelargonium, Sandalwood and some more subtle ones.
One of the best things about forays is the sheer number of noses you can call upon. We had one mushroom this year described as smelling like “Fresh Baby.”
Earlier this year, I made a request to Paul Kirk, who, in response, kindly let me have a copy of the entire list of names and number of records for those species of fungi on the FRDBI British list as of 11th May 2015. As of that date, there were 16658 fungi species named on the list. (Current names – not including synonyms).
Of those: –
3884 species had just 1 record.
1829 species had 2 records.
1085 species had 3 records.
831 species had 4 records.
587 species had 5 records.
So, in the 1 – 5 records range, there are 8216 species – just less than half the species on the entire British list.
With 10 or more records, there were 6928 species.
20 or more records – 4988 species.
50 or more records – 3268 species,
100 or more records – 2238 species.
200 or more records – 1408 species.
300 or more records – 1088 species.
400 or more records – 877 species.
500 or more records – 738 species.
1000 or more records – 394 species.
As may be seen from the above, although the list has more than 16000 named species, (and depending on where you might want to make an arbitrary decision as to what number of records constitutes a species being “common”), only a fraction of the species on the list have relatively high numbers of records – which would go some way towards explaining why even so called comprehensive field guides, are nothing of the sort.
Also, where does one draw the line between what might be considered “macro” fungi, and what might be considered “micro” fungi? – Most field guides include at least some species which I would consider to be within the “micro” sector.
The British Mycological Society’s standard record submissions spreadsheet format doesn’t include columns to differentiate between “macro” and “micro”, or even to differentiate between basidiomycetes, ascomycetes, or myxomycetes, so unless there is some method whereby that sort of information is automatically generated from the species name, and kept at national database level, I don’t think there would be any ready means of being able to find a definitive answer to your original question.
Regards,
Mike.
Mike I think you may have hit on why I am having such a problem getting an answer. Can I hasten to add though I wasn’t looking for anything particularly exact. It’s interesting that there doesn’t appear to be a breaking down of species into groupings for recording purposes.
I’m going to sleep on it. I think it would make mycology more accessible.
I reckon Mike’s post merits being made a sticky as it is so informative. I assume it includes species unsubstantiated with a voucher specimen, and species names that are not accepted. Quite often records for one species contain many mis-IDs, possibly because the literature used did not include the correct species, or because specimens were not examined with a microscope. So some of those very rare species may be spurious.
Funga Nordica covers 2675 species, which covers agarics, boletes and cyphelloids that are easily seen with the naked eye. Not sure if this is of any use to you, but I regularly find species not covered by Phillips, which contains roughly 1000 species. I can’t offhand think of a species I have found which was not covered by FN but which was in the groups it covers. But bear in mind FN does not cover ascomycetes, bracket fungi, hypogeous (subterranean) fungi, puffballs, flask fungi and many other groups.
Simon Horsnall wrote:. . . . . It’s interesting that
there doesn’t appear to be a breaking down of species into groupings for recording purposes. I’m going to sleep on it. I think it would make mycology more accessible
Hi SimonI’m not quite sure what you mean by the two comments highlighted above
http://www.brc.ac.uk/psl/users/simon-horsnallhttp://www.brc.ac.uk/psl/users/simon-horsnall” class=”bbcode_url”> regards
Chris
No Chris it’s not related to PSL. It seems that all other Kingdoms split themselves up into smaller groups. Yet mycologists don’t seem to do this. I am interested in fungi for multiple reasons and I do like to identify what I see. But without some way of breaking it down, I don’t see how it can be accessible. If somebody were interested in insects they wouldn’t get the advice “Well there are 25 000 spp and it takes a lot of expensive literature to identify them all and you are going to have to dissect genitalia and mount on slides and …” They would be directed towards a natural grouping e.g. butterflies with the knowledge that there are 60 spp which they can familiarise themselves with before moving on to macro moths then micro moths. These are artificial groupings but ones which work from a recording point of view and which make insects manageable. I can go and get a general insect guide and it will tell me what a fly, bug, beetle or thrips is and I can compare the number of butterflies in it with the 60 on the UK list. So it’s not about racking up huge lists. I am quite happy letting sphecid and ichneumonid wasps go as I am quite happy naming a Russula as sp. It wasn’t there to start arguments or have a dig at anybody. It was there as how can I start independently recording fungi in a way that is meaningful, I can be confident of my determinations, enjoy doing it and not get frustrated with a book which in a year/2/10 is just cluttering shelf space because I cannot use it.
Leif wrote:. . . I assume it
(The FRDBI list)includes species unsubstantiated with a voucher specimen, and species names that are not accepted. Quite often records for one species contain many mis-IDs, possibly because the literature used did not include the correct species, or because specimens were not examined with a microscope. So some of those very rare species may be spurious. . . .
Hi Leif,
The FRDBI list certainly includes records unsubstantiated by voucher specimen, as it contains records submitted by both local/regional fungus groups and by individuals.
I doubt whether the list would include species names that are “not accepted”, and would assume that all of the included species names are generally current and valid. (With the caveat that the list is not entirely up-to-date as far as recent taxonomical changes brought about as a result of DNA sequencing etc.).
I would agree that there will be miss-ID’s and spurious records, and there are definitely numerous duplicate records too, so, even though it is the best record information we have available, we cannot take the information as being 100% accurate.
Simon Horsnall wrote:. . . It seems that all other Kingdoms split themselves up into smaller groups. Yet mycologists don’t seem to do this. . . . It wasn’t there to start arguments or have a dig at anybody. It was there as how can I start independently recording fungi in a way that is meaningful, I can be confident of my determinations, enjoy doing it and not get frustrated with a book which in a year/2/10 is just cluttering shelf space because I cannot use it.
Hi Simon,I’m not sure what criteria you are using for your definition of “smaller groups”?
The obvious and very much pre-defined “group” within mycology is the genus. Whilst “macro” and “micro” fungi would be something of an artificial/arbitrary splitting, a given genus has a properly defined set of characteristics relative to the species within it. (Yes, DNA sequencing is revealing some surprises, requiring taxonomic change, but in general terms (no pun intended) the genus is the smallest “group” that is relevant to the field mycologist.
When an entomologist records for example, a Red Admiral (
Vanessa atalanta), surely, the record won’t be interested in things like was the butterfly “macro” or “micro”, or even that it was a butterfly rather than a wasp? those things would be taken for granted. The record would be more concerned with the fact that this record was a member of the genus Vanessa, that it was species atalanta, that it was male/female, etc. etc. In the same way, what would be the advantage to mycological recording of whether a record is of a large or a small fungus?, or whether it is a basidio, or an asco, or a myxo? – Those things are implicit in the record by virtue of the species name.
You (quite rightly) want to be sure that your mycological recording is accurate and meaningful. Unfortunately, to get to species level with absolute certainty requires not only the microscope, but a great deal of specialist literature, access to countless academic “papers”, and contact and collaboration with acknowledged leaders in their respective mycological fields. (Even then, failure to confidently identify finds to species level is commonplace, and something that, at our levels of experience, has to be accepted as par for the course).
However, being unable to get to species level doesn’t mean that your recording is of no consequence. At local/area level, even if they are only to genus level, records showing that a certain site holds several different Russula / Mycena / Bolete species etc.etc. (particularly if backed up by simple photographs) can be very useful, (for example if plans were afoot to build on the site), showing that the area has fungal diversity. Much better than having no fungal records at all for the site.
It can be frustrating when a find can’t be ID’d to species level, (in my case particularly so if I happen to get a good photo of it, and then don’t know what it is that I’ve photographed!), but as your experience grows, you will be able to recognise many of the more common species by sight, and good numbers of your records will then be confidently recorded at species level.
No single field guide will satisfy your needs, even when considering only the more common species. Having four or five books available lets you compare what the authors have written about the species, and enables you to see several different examples in photographs.
One thing I would stress is that almost without exception, field guides show nice pristine examples, photographed in their prime.
What you are likely to find (more often than not) are examples that may be young / old / slug chewed / atypical / substantially larger than the books would have you believe / growing in habitats that the books don’t mention / growing at times of year that are at odds with what the books say, etc. etc. etc.
But don’t be disheartened. – Record what you can, to the best of your abilities. – And you will soon find that your abilities begin to improve!
Regards,
Mike.
Mike, good point about duplicates. I have submitted records, and then seen duplicates, and this occurs for others too. I think it is something to do with records being processed through two paths, and then collected. I notice it most when submitting very rare species, as then 10 records might actually condense down to 6 or 7 unique ones, and of those some might be unsupported by voucher material, so in reality mine might be one of only 4 or 5 confirmed collections, rare indeed albeit not a new for Britain. I believe it does include names that are not accepted, certainly the Basidiomycota Checklist refers to many species that are not accepted, or which do not have voucher material hence cannot be considered authentically British.
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