Community Dynamics of Ectomycorrhizal Fungi Following the Vision

Many people that read this chapter may be aware of mammals, birds, and maybe even plant species that are common at Point Reyes, and may have witnessed or have been aware of the ways that these organisms responded to the Vision fi re of 1995. Few will be familiar with fungal species at Point Reyes, and even fewer may have noticed their response to the fi re. This is un for tu nate, be cause fungi play many critical roles in structuring and maintaining plant (and therefore also animal) communities at Point Reyes. It is un der stand able, however, because even those of us that study fungi for a living know less about them than plant or animal biologists typically know about their or gan isms. There are several reasons for our collective ignorance. Fungi can be diffi cult to identify, so reliable species records are rare. For most of their lives, fungi are microscopic and hidden in soil or plant parts; this makes it diffi cult to observe their basic life histories and ecology. Finally, relatively few people study fungi, especially when one considers that there are roughly six species of fungi for every plant species on the planet (Hawksworth 1990). The good news is that there is much to learn, and the Vision fi re provided an exceptional opportunity to do exactly that.