Please join us for our first webinar series!
Presented by Hans Lambers, School of Biological Sciences, UWA
Click ‘Reserve Tickets’ and you will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom meeting link attached. This link is only available to those who reserve tickets.
Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot, with the greatest plant diversity on severely phosphorus-impoverished soils. Non-mycorrhizal plant families (e.g., Proteaceae) feature prominently on the poorest soils, and are uncommon on richer soils.
The ecological success of Proteaceae on severely impoverished soils can be explained by two traits. Almost all Proteaceae produce cluster roots, which mobilise the scarcely-available but essential element, phosphorus. Australian Proteaceae also use phosphorus very efficiently in photosynthesis, and show a tremendous capacity to remobilise it from senescing leaves.
But the Proteaceae are only one component of the extraordinary plant diversity. Why do species with a less effective phosphorus-acquisition strategy coexist with ones that are far superior in extracting phosphorus from our extremely poor soils? Facilitation by neighbours definitely plays a role, and nutrients mobilised by Proteaceae are also used by neighbours without this strategy. It is only part of the story, however, and we are unlocking the next chapter of how native parasites (oomycetes or water-moulds) also contribute to the megadiversity in the southwest.
Please join us for our next Branch meeting
Thursday 2nd June 2022
All welcome! 7:30 – 9:30pm @ The Wetlands
Education Centre Cockburn, 184 Hope Road, Bibra Lake. Entry $3
Join us for book sales, supper, door prizes and great company!
Bio: Elaine Davison is a plant pathologist/mycologist who has worked on diseases in native ecosystems and horticulture. Since retirement from the public service she has developed a long held interest in Amanita mushrooms. She recently received a grant from the WA Naturalists’ Club Inc. and Lotterywest for DNA sequencing of amanitas which complements previous work funded by ABRS.
The talk will introduce the fungi, covering what they are, and their importance in the ecosystem. DNA techniques now underpin their identification, and, within the cosmopolitan mushroom genus Amanita, have revealed a group that is unique to Australia.
At the talk on the 8th September 2016 meeting of the Armadale Branch , Kevn Griffiths gave a talk on Fungi. Kevn began his talk by informing the group that his interest in fungi started when his daughter Donna, a gifted artist, was asked to do a book on fungi, but she had no time to do so and that he took on the project for her. He knew absolutely nothing about fungi at that time and he soon found himself on a steep learning curve.
Fungi in Australia are virtually unnamed, but Dr Neale Bougher, a Western Australian fungi expert, renamed and reclassified many fungi that had been previously documented here in WA.
There are many different fungi found in a woodland and their main role is composting. A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and the roots of a vascular plant such as a tree. The fungi help the tree by clinging to the roots where they get sugar and the tree gets nutrients far from the base of the tree because of the way that fungi attach and spread from tree roots. Fungi also breakdown leaves to compost and small animals such as Woylies eat fungus and disperse the spores far from the parent fungi.
Read more and see images of fungi : Fungi by Kevn Griffiths
