People Are Sequencing Mushroom DNA at Home Now
They’ve blown open the world of fungal biodiversity, in California and beyond.
Fungi
Snake Fungal Disease Is Spreading in California. What Can We Do?
As statewide funding for disease surveillance runs out this year, here’s what to look out for—and how to be a friend to your local snakes.
California’s New State Mushroom Is One Heck of a Fungus
After votes from California mushroom enthusiasts, the bling under the live oaks emerged as the winner.
Sex and Poison May Explain California Death Cap Invasion
Local mycologists suspect death caps—huge and abundant in the Bay Area—may be competing with chanterelles underground.
The Amanitas Are Blooming. Don’t Eat Them.
Death caps and Western destroying angels, both common in the Bay Area, thrive after rainfall, the East Bay park district warns.
Winter 2024 Almanac: Manroots, Skinks, and Avocets
You didn’t imagine it. That was a tiny blue tail you saw wriggling through the damp leaves and brush. Illustrations by Jane Kim.
Bay Nature’s Hall of Botanical Horrors
For those who dare—meet the Bay Area’s spookiest plants (and two freaky fungi).
A Better Way to Forage Matsutake Mushrooms
"Xayviish has far more personality than any grocery-store mushroom," writes Sara Calvosa Olson, a Karuk tribal member. "It’s a meaty but delicate time machine, whisking your spirit back to your gathering place."
How the DNA We Leave Behind Can Help Conservation
Bits of DNA linger on the forest floor, in the ocean, and even in the air—and these strands have stories to tell, back at the lab. Here's how environmental DNA (aka 'eDNA') is starting to transform how ecologists work in the Bay Area and beyond.
