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The Invasive Species Devouring North American and European Forests

Sure, they’re delicious, but this probably wasn’t worth it.

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The golden oyster mushroom doesn’t look like it’s capable of radically altering forests across North America and Europe. It isn’t malevolent. It doesn’t have world domination plans. It’s just a cluster of a kind of mustard yellow mushrooms. Yet its spread has been wild and unchecked, and is slowly changing some of the most important ecosystems in the world.

The reason it’s spread so quickly is the same reason it was initially brought over from Asia back in the early 2000’s: it can grow quickly, which was a boon, as it’s considered one of the most delicious mushrooms a forager can find out in the woods.

The problem is, it didn’t stay contained. It spread fast, quickly showing up in at least 25 states, as it thrived on dead and dying hardwood. Typically, according to a BBC report, trees colonized by golden oyster mushrooms host about half the fungal biodiversity of unaffected trees, a strong signal that native fungi are being crowded out and replaced with a single plant, which decreases biodiversity and disrupts food chains.

This matters because fungi are a part of the infrastructure of their environments. They help break down wood, recycle nutrients, support plant growth, and quite literally help forests breathe. When one aggressive species rolls in and dominates, it creates ripple effects on everything from the rate of decay and the amount of carbon a forest releases. It makes otherwise predictable ecosystems wildly unpredictable.

Golden Oyster Mushrooms Are Decimating the Microscopic Worm Population

There’s also the other, more unsettling part of the wild spread of the golden oyster mushroom: oyster mushrooms are carnivorous. They trap and paralyze microscopic worms using a toxin, then ingest them from the inside. They consume more as they grow and spread, further damaging environments.

It’s easy to suggest going in there and stopping the spread as best we can, but that’s not only easier said than done, it might actually be impossible at this rate. A single mushroom can release billions of spores. Containment is wishful thinking at that point. So, instead, a loose connection of professional growers, hobbyists, and citizen scientists is trying a different approach: rather than trying to prevent the golden oyster mushroom from continuing to spread, they’re helping native fungi better compete against it.

The BBC spoke to a mushroom forager named Andy Knott, who hands out kits of cloned native oyster mushrooms to the public as a part of a conservation effort. Some then deliberately spread these spores in their local environments.

The two biggest factors contributing to the spread of not just golden oyster mushrooms but other rapidly spreading fungi like death caps are human trade and climate change. Scientists are only just beginning to track the consequences, but we know for certain that humans bringing non-native species along with them when they move is the inciting incident, and climate change, bringing on warmer temperatures and, in some places, more humid climates that allow mushrooms to thrive, is helping these non-native mushrooms spread in places they should not be.

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