Fungus

Break granted , but if there is anything you didn't understand (yet), ask for an explanation, because that's what Tony, David and I are here for.

Daniel, 1. I'm not pretending nor aiming at describing the individual life of a single tree, I'm assessing, monitoring, analyzing and documenting the life cycle of an endemic tree species and its ecosystem in its original habitat under as "normal" as possible natural circumstances to derive information from, that is useful for the management of planted forests and urban trees. 2. For this I refer to general or contextual system theory, which takes the following principles as its starting point : - every individual organism is part of a context, all context's can be divided into a hierarchy of context's, the higher up the hierarchy, the more complex a context becomes and the more levels and meta (= micro, meso, macro) levels can be distinguished - in analyzing an outcome of interaction between organisms, the "here and now" is more important than the history of the lifes of the participants - the functioning of individual participants of a(n) (eco)system can only be understood from the rules and the processes - without beginning or end - with positive feedback stimulating development and negative feedback inhibiting development of the system and its participants -the characteristics of an individual are not to be seen as just being a trait of the organism, but as the characteristics of an individual within, influencing and influenced by its actual context and system, which is in a kalibrated temporary equilibrium or homeostasis, i.e. an either positive or negative balance situation in the current course of within system context's life events - the principle of non-additionality (Gestalt), assuming that the characteristics of an entirety are influenced by, but can not be derived from its constituting parts, in other words, the whole or entirety is more than the sum of its parts and a part is influenced, but not completely determined by the whole, as f.i. an orchestra is more than fifteen musicians playing a symphony, which will never be performed the same way again - the principles of multicausality and equifinality, meaning that a system can reach the same end stadium from completely different starting points, or the same course of events in the life of one individual can lead to completely different outcomes in the life of another, and the outcomes of a life of one individual can not be derived from sharing the same course of life events with another individual, as all individuals are as well unique and a "product" of their own life cycles within their own (eco)systems 3. To a certain extent comparable, but for the greater part not simular. 4. No, it is not, it's the other way around. I just meant to say, that the poor life circumstances of managed and often damaged urban trees and its effects on the vitality and life expectation of the trees, only can be understood and explained if one goes back to their natural habitats to gather information on their tree species specific ecosystems. If you mean last week's storm, no, I didn't, this time the damage was mainly confined to the north western and south eastern provinces.

Gollum, You should have choosen another example, because both Prunus and Malus is associated with endomycorrhizal microfungi . See the short list of ecto- and endomycorrhizal fungi.

I have seen rapid and extensive damage done to the roots and trunk bases (below ground level) of Quercus rubra, which is not associated with Fistulina hepatica (or Inonotus dryadeus), so in this case it seems to be a primairy invader, because it attacks and fruits without before and after presence of other parasites.

I've seen I. hispidus on both, and in The Netherlands it especially is a threat to old Malus trees of rare races or varieties in old orchards. Both photo's are from I. hispidus on two different Malus trees. ---

Scroll down to the book in the middle, click on View in fullscreen and turn the pages of this online book on macrofungi, or have a look at this book with 60 species of macrofungi.

1. In case you didn't notice, the trees concerned are not located in America or Australia, so when I refer to standard VTA-practice, I refer to what is standard practice in European countries such as The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the U.K. and Ireland. By the way, standard VTA-practice according to Mattheck is integrated in and an essential part of my Mycological Tree Assessment method including the Tree Species Specific Ecosystem concept. 2. "half of a centimetre of the bracket" together with a scrape (spores) from the bark beneath the bracket is more than enough for a mycologist. 3. An illusion of alternatives then ? If it had not been pruined, it would have been split in two and lost, and because it had been pruined, it just had a shear crack and is preserved, still standing and repairing the damage. 4. So you can identify G. australe from pictures too, just as the consulting arborist thought could be done by sending a photo of a bracket to a German "specialist" ? Both "diagnostic" reports I've seen from the consulting arborists were in Dutch, so I can assume you can read Dutch ... goed genoeg om deze zin (en de rest van het bericht) af te kunnen maken in het Nederlands ? Which arborist on the job did not overlook the "body language" of 22 smaller panic fruiting and big, but receding perennial brackets of the biotrophic parasitic G. australe (nota bene : not the necrotrophic parasitic G. lipsiense, as the German "specialist" had said), of which the mycelium had completely undermined the inside of the tree from the trunk base up to 1.5 metres height, which could have been assessed by simple methods such as increments taken from the trunk or penetrating the wood in between the buttresses with a long spike ? And which arborists had knowledge of the fact, that tomograms of Aesculus invaded by G. australe hardly ever show any damage done by the mycelium to the central wood of the tree ? As so many others, you have been fooled by the PR-machine of the guilty party. The press releases from the arborists concerned were all part of a cover up to conceal the mistakes they made and the misleading of the judge, who was led to believe, that the tree could be preserved for many years to come or even outlive a veteran tree specialist from abroad, if adequate measures were taken. Their only concern was preventing to be taken to court and be sued for damages, so they blamed the welders for not doing a good job on scaffolding a tree, which had no future anyway, because it already was extremely unstable and under attack of G. australe, rhizomorphs of a parasitic Armillaria species, chestnut leave miner and already was "on the short list" for an infection with chestnut bleeding canker.

You don't have to travel to NZ to see willows like this. In The Netherlands we have plenty of so called "grienden" of pollarded and natural willows under the influence of the tide of the North See along and in the "uiterwaarden" or regularely flooded riverbanks of the main rivers, which are daily flooded by sweet or brackish water at high tide. The most famous "griend" is de Biesbosch river delta, the territory of lots of birds and the beaver. Because of the density and impenetrabilety of these river bank "grienden", except for one place called Dorestad (now Wijk bij Duurstede), the Vikings didn't succeed in invading The Netherlands from their ships with which they sailed inland on the rivers.

Josh, ... some other stuff being a Lactarius species (photo 1) and Cantarellus cibarius (photo 2), the tasty ones.

1. I referred to standard VTA practice, which - you being an arborist should know - is quite different from a "fell or conserve" dichotomy. And you seem to know what I think, which is quite an accomplishment from where you are located. In German this is called "hineininterpretieren" without checking what the views and opinions of the other person are. 2. You would be amazed to see what a mycologist with a microscope can do with just a bit of fungal material. 3. Much simpler : the oak was heavily pruined and only had a small crown left. So there you go with your armchair analysis. 4. You were there, were you, and saw the remnants of the tree after it had collapsed and the extent of white rot with selective delignification by G. australe was assessed, which was overlooked by the consulting arborists and should have been a contra-indication for spending so much money on a tree without perspective or future whatever measures taken ?

Guy, 1. You obviously didn't read or fully comprehend my earlier post. 2. ... which is easy to assess, provided you use a microscope instead of a magnifying glass to identify the species with. 3. How did you assess, that the crack was due to "excessive mass" from a picture, that doesn't show the crown ? 4. Correction : "this is what G. australe did to this oak". I uploaded the photo as an example of what might happen if the diagnosis of the pathogen was false, as I have witnessed lots of times before, with the most dramatic example the total collapse of the Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam. 5. You seem to be loosing a rational perspective on reality again.

There is a contradition in terms in this. If you choose to close the niches of the pruning cuts rather than to leave them open, the answer to your last question is : no, it doesn't !

And to add some more considerations concerning the differences between humans, animals and trees : - trees are not capable of "spontaneous behaviour", they are predetermined by their tree species specific genetic traits and a restricted repertoire that "permits" them to react to outside influences, i.e. they are not in control of their own ecosystem, in which the fungal mycelia are the interfaces, go betweens or intermediaries linking together the entire ecosystem, - trees are immobile : once a seed is germinated and a seedling starts its newborn life, the tree is fixated to a territory it can't leave to look for greener pastures, so it has to live and cope with whatever the circumstances and the by the environment determined changes are for the rest of its life with only little possibilities to (in time) adapt to them, - trees can not find shelter or build a roof over their head/crown to protect themselves, i.e. their leaves and especialy their extremely vulnerable embryonic tissue (cambium), which in some tree species only is covered with a thin layer of bark, against air pollution (acidification, nitrification) and "winged" (birds, insects) or otherwise airborn (spores, virus, bacteria) parasites, so they have to rely on defense systems, that are predominately "loaded" with weapons produced by other organismes (assimilation, mycorrhizal fungi) then themselves, - for their water and nutrients supply, trees highly depend on other locally present organisms participating in the soil food web, such as mycorrhizal symbionts associating with their root system, which implicates, that when the symbionts are killed by an outside vector, which is not under control of the tree and its ecosystem, the tree goes without food and "medication" (antibiotics, fungicides) needed to survive, for which it can't compensate by going to a GP or the drugstore or by having surgery to remove the tumor or canker, - for their reproduction (DNA), trees need phosphorus and nitrogen, which for the greater part or only can be obtained through intervention of the mycelia of mycorrhizal symbionts, - most urban trees are not originally endemic, they "kick off" and "quick start" at a nursery and after being uprooted and replanted, live the life of a "displaced person" or "fugitive", who has "lost its roots" and has to rely on a poorly developed ecosystem, only some generalistic locally indigenous mycorrhizal symbionts and lots of indigenous parasites are part of.

These are not FB's of a Honey fungus, but of Collybia fusipes. For the effects on trees such as oak and beech, see my Quercus robur & Collybia fusipes thread.

Daniel, I don't think your comparison of humans with trees is valid. Attributing human traits to trees is a form of anthropomorphism. Trees have no brain, nervous system, conscience or free will, they are predetermined by their species specific characteristics and life cycles and don't have a choice as to acting "sensibly" or abiding to the rules of "healthy" behaviour. They just can follow tree species specific strategies or "rules of engagement" and react to the "good" and "bad" things happening to them within the limitations of the tree species they belong to. Compared to human life, tree life is fairly simple. A birch doesn't need to be equiped to react to an invasion of the mycelium of Piptoporus quercinus, just as an oak doesn't need to be able to defend itself against an attack of the mycelium of P. betulinus. In this sense, humans have the disadvantage of having to be able to defend themselves against any disease humans and lots of other mammals can catch and/or die from.

Sloth, The researchers didn't answer these questions, so one can only speculate about what the benefits are and the best "exchange" rate is. One can, however, without a doubt assume, that within the soil food web there is lots of "cheating", "trickery" and "fooling" others for own gain and territorial warfare going on, as is demonstrated by a parasitic Armillaria species, that as a wolf in sheep's clothes, mimicks the "communication" feromones of ectomycorrhizal macrofungi to be allowed to make superficial contact with the tree root and than invades the living tissue cells and kills them. And another example is found in Pleurotus ostreatus, Panellus stipticus, Hohenbuehelia species and the anamorphs of Orbilia species sending out lasso's or sticky buds on a hyphae from their below ground level mycelia to catch and devour nematodes with. So one can safely conclude, that there isn't such a thing as altruism in the world of the soil food web species.

Yes, you can, as long as one takes the tree species specific life cycle and the succesion of generalistic and/or tree species specific macrofungi in its natural habitat under "normal" conditions as a starting point. However, succesion starts with the generalistic and/or tree species specific ectomycorrhizal pioneer symbionts kicking off at and "breast feeding" the seedlings of the tree from point zero and ends with the final phase, in which generalistic symbionts provide "terminal care" for the terminal "patient" and facilitate its last reproductive attempts. In other words, there is a care system present from the cradle to the grave. The same goes for the successive phases saprotrophic macrofungi go through and for the biotrophic and/or necrotrophic parasitic macrofungi, that operate as proces accelerators, intervening once the tree gets sick and/or old and instead of being the "sugardaddy", becomes a parasite of its ecosystem, which can cause the entire tree species specific ecosystem to collaps.

Gollum, What if this is a solitary beech and you would assess and monitor the tree species specific ectomycorrhizal macrofungi and their successive places in the tree species specific life cycle, would you then be able to estimate the age of the tree ? My expectation would be, that this beech is predominantly accompanied by generalistic ectomycorrhizal symbionts, meaning the beech has entered the final phase of its life cycle, which would imply, that a beech this big is about 300 years old.

I don't want to (probably unnecessarily) alarm you, but this is what G. australe did to a from the outside perfectly healthy looking Q. robur, which' trunk got twisted (torsion) and vertically delaminated (shear crack) during a storm.

Gollum, Then there also must be Quercus cerris around and did you look for the tiny white Mycena cecidiophila, which only grows on and fruits from the knopper galls ?

Pete & Tony, 1. When I do find them in buildings, it's almost always at a side or the lower side of beams in wet cellars. 2. Correct : shape, size and colour of the spores and the presence or absence of incrustrated cystidia, but for building restoration it's only necessary to be sure about it being a Coniophora species to be able to determine the type of wood rot. Microscopical identification of the exact Coniophora species is only relevant for those "fanatics", who want to publish photo's of species and/or document a species with a dried specimen in their herbarium. 3. I think it could well be an Asterostroma species, such as A. laxum or A. ochroleucum. Did you check for pale brown multiple pointed asterosetae ?

See : 2. Biotrophic & necrotrophic parasitic macrofungi.

Martyn, Maybe not special, but Dutch . See : Ash from the continent.

The outcome of Dutch research on the economics of mycorrhizae and plant or tree roots.

The outcome of Dutch research on the economics of mycorrhizae and tree roots.