Myco-consortium Lecture Series 2025 Announced
January 29, 2025
Partner spotlight: check out the Natural Areas Conservancy’s interactive map of New York City’s forests!
February 2, 2025
FUNDIS has just posted an important post on the aggressively invasive golden oyster mushroom in their newsletter. FUNDIS is a non-profit working to protect fungal diversity through conservation, education, and community engagement. Find out more about them here.
We’re reposting their post here:
Golden Oysters have escaped cultivation – now, they might be outcompeting and displacing native fungal diversity.
Jan 30
Within the last decade, a boom of non-native golden oysters has been fruiting in North America. The spread poses a risk to microbial biodiversity.
It’s beyond time for us to steward fungal biodiversity and cultivate fungi intentionally.
Andi Reisdorf (née Bruce) completed her master’s studying the introduced and aggressive golden oyster. She told us her concerns as the mushroom continues to spread throughout the Eastern and Midwest regions. For those of us who want to help, she advised us what to do – and what not to do.
“Ecosystems need biodiversity to thrive, and that includes microbial biodiversity. The rapid spread of golden oysters suggests that native decomposers are being outcompeted and displaced, which is a major concern for ecosystem functioning.” – Andi Reisdorf (née Bruce)
Since the early 2010s, the species has been observed approximately 8,000 times on iNaturalist alone.
While there are regions more susceptible to this aggressive decomposer, Andi recommends not growing golden oysters and avoiding growing any non-native fungi in North America (even in places where it’s not growing naturalized yet).
Rather, grow native mushrooms cultivated from local specimens, a few examples being:
Pleurotus ostreatus
Pleurotus pulmonarius
Pleurotus populinus
Bonus points if you grow a phenotype local to habitats near you instead of a big-box grow kit.
Andi recommends avoiding any other introduced mushroom species. If trends continue and mycophagy becomes increasingly popular, another exotic culinary edible could be introduced. And, it could escape cultivation the same way.
What else can you do to help?
Try to forage golden oysters before they mature and their spores drop. The younger you can pick them, the better!
Forage golden oysters into a plastic bag tied tightly or another confined container to prevent the spread of spores.
Educate your local clubs and forays around the ID table about the mushroom’s aggressive and introduced nature.
