The weather may be cooling off, but mushroom season is still heating up! 

The meeting will be held via Zoom (link below). MAW President Elizabeth Hargrave will kick things off with updates on club activities and fungi in the news.   Foray Chair Mitch Fournet will lead the virtual ID table, highlighting recent fungal finds sent in by our members.  You can send your pics to Mitch at forays@mawdc.org.

Our featured speaker for the evening is Christian Schwarz. His talk is titled Mushroom Bioregions of The United States. We can't wait for it! Here's why:

Biogeography is one of the most fascinating topics in all of natural history. The basic question is simple: Where do organisms live? But every subsequent question adds a new layer of complexity: Do they live there all the time? Why do they live there? Are there patterns that emerge when we look at groups of organisms? Are there strange discrepancies that don't fit the pattern? How small of an area can we map, and how finely? In this talk, we'll explore broad bioregions of the United States from the perspective of mushrooms (which sometimes align with bioregions of plants and animals... but not always!). From the chilly and damp temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest to the subtropical hardwood hammocks of Florida; from the arid interior deserts to the alpine crest of the Rocky Mountains, we'll take a tour of some of the country's distinct macrofungal communities and ask ourselves questions about time, space, and evolution.

Christian Schwarz studied Ecology and Evolution at UC Santa Cruz, where his interest in the world of fungi became irrevocable – their seemingly endless forms (from the grotesque to the bizarre to the sublime) feed his curiosity. Christian now teaches Natural History of Fungi and Community Science through the Norris Center at UCSC. He is co-author of Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast and has served on the IUCN Red List Working Group for North American Fungi. He spends his time studying the ecology and natural history of California, Baja California, and Arizona.  He is passionate about biodiversity in general, and especially the philosophy and practice of community science.

Zoom Link: 

https://zoom.us/j/96693690911?pwd=YWdyeXh1bHF1N1UyNjNieFovNWFUZz09

Meeting ID 966 9369 0911

Passcode  330827

One Tap Mobile +13017158592,,96693690911#,,,,*330827# US (Washington DC)

Find your local Zoom access number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kQ9hr47WO