Sapphire Joy Melissa McMullan-Fisher

Fungi4Land

Plant and animal conservation have benefited from the assistance of wildlife detection dogs (WDDs) since 1890, but their application to fungal conservation has not been trialed. In a world-first, we tested the effectiveness of WDDs and human surveyors when searching for experimentally outplanted fungi in natural habitat. We focused on a critically...

Many stakeholders, from governments to civil society to businesses, lack the data they need to make informed decisions on biodiversity, jeopardising efforts to conserve, restore and sustainably manage nature. Here we review the importance of enhancing biodiversity monitoring, assess the challenges involved and identify potential solutions. Capacity...

Novel species of fungi described in this study include those from various countries as follows: Antartica, Cladosporium austrolitorale from coastal sea sand. Australia, Austroboletus yourkae on soil, Crepidotus innuopurpureus on dead wood, Curvularia stenotaphri from roots and leaves of Stenotaphrum secundatum and Thecaphora stajsicii from capsules...

The 2019–2020 Victorian bushfires have had wide-ranging impacts on the state’s biodiversity, including to populations of threatened species (DELWP 2020). There has been no formal assessment of the impacts to cryptogam species; namely the bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, hornworts), freshwater algae and fungi (including lichens). A workshop was cond...

The myxomycete diversity is poorly known in tropical regions of Australia. We present a list of myxomycetes from the summer rainfall regions of tropical Australia collated from field collections from the wet tropics of Queensland (February 2009) and from the Kimberley region of Western Australia (February 2006, January 2010, May 2011), together wit...

Frequent burning is commonly undertaken to maintain diversity in temperate grasslands of southern Australia. How burning affects below-ground fungal community diversity remains unknown. We show, using a fungal rDNA metabarcoding approach (Illumina MiSeq), that the fungal community composition was influenced by fire regime (frequency) but not time-s...

On the 16th February 2016, the Urban Sustainability Branch of the City of Melbourne conducted a workshop with a working group of plant, fungi, bird, reptile, frog, mammal, insect and mollusc experts with the objective of identifying appropriate target species for rewilding, monitoring and public engagement in the City of Melbourne. The workshop was...

The natural diet of the camaenid land snail Thersites mitchellae (Cox, 1864) was investigated by examination of the faecal contents of specimens collected from a range of substrates. The composition of faecal pellets from 22 snails obtained from three different substrates was determined. The results demonstrate that T. mitchellae has a generalist f...

A guide to some of the common fungi found in subtropical Australia. Descriptions and photographs of 115 fungi together with a morphological key to the main groups.

This Guide has been written to provide field naturalists and other citizen-scientists with a basic understanding of fungal survey techniques, outlining the basic steps to conducting a fungal survey under Australian conditions. The protocols were developed in consultation with mycologists and environmental managers, and field naturalist groups throu...

Pisolithus croceorrhizus P. Leonard & McMullan-Fisher sp. nov. from Australia and New Caledonia is described and illustrated. Analysis of ITS sequence data, and morphological characters, support the distinction of this species from another species with golden rhizoids, P. aurantioscabrosus Watling from Malaysia.

Considers several species of Australian Pisolithus based on field characters and habitat

Fungi are diverse and functionally significant components of ecosystems yet are omitted from current ecological monitoring in Victoria, especially in relation to fire. The taxonomic and morphological diversity of fungi complicates identification but sampling by molecular profiling is now a practical alternative to specialised and time-consuming met...

Fungi are essential components of all ecosystems in roles including symbiotic partners, decomposers and nutrient cyclers and as a source of food for vertebrates and invertebrates. Fire changes the environment in which fungi live by affecting soil structure, nutrient availability, organic and inorganic substrates and other biotic components with whi...

Changes in the occurrence of macrofungi with time following forestry activities and fire were studied at 14 sites in Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) dominated forests, in the Eastern Central Highlands, Victoria, Australia. Forests of 0-57 years after fire were used to compare macrofungal communities. Pattern analysis through classification and or...