Ep. 97: Mushrooms of the Mountain Ranges & High Meadows of California (feat. Thea Chesney)

Thea Chesney is a lifelong Sierra Nevada foothill resident and naturalist. She has had an interest in mushrooms (and plants, and the rest of the natural world) since early childhood, which gradually became an obsession. She holds a B.S. in forestry from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis in botany and natural sciences. During her time at Berkeley, she spent plenty of time working and hanging out in the Berkeley mycology labs and continues to return to campus to provide specimens for and aid in teaching their mushroom ID course. She worked on a mushroom survey crew for the U.S. Forest Service around Mt. Shasta for several seasons, which allowed her to become intimately familiar with the fungal inhabitants and ecology of the area. Since then, she has continued with the Forest Service as a botanist for a long-term California-wide meadow monitoring project. She teaches occasional workshops in mushroom and plant identification, both for work and independently. She has also been involved with the California Rare Fungi Working Group since its inception. Her fieldwork and her own studies of plants and fungi are centered in the Sierra Nevada and other mountains of California, and she is currently working on a field guide to mushrooms of these understudied regions with Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz.   TOPICS COVERED:   Mycology Lineage & Childhood Immersion in Nature  Underexplored Mountain Ranges of California  Diversity of Bioregions in Mountain Ranges  Mycorrhizal Mushrooms & Tree Hosts  Montane Water Cycles, Plant Ecology & Fungal Diversity  High Meadows Ecosystems & Their Mushrooms  California Rare Fungi Working Group  The Future of Documenting Fungal Diversity  Fire-Following Fungi  Morel Habitat & Ecology in California  Tips for Finding Morels  Thea’s Lifelong Connection to the Sierras  Klamath Mountains – The Most Biodiverse Pocket of California?!  Future Work with Christian Schwarz & Noah Siegel  EPISODE RESOURCES:   Thea Chesney iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/theachesney   Thea's Talk on Fire Fungi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9Irj0GtTE   Thea's Talk on Mycorrhizal Fungi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PISk9C6FAds   Prof. Ralph Emerson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Emerson_(botanist)   Klamath Mountains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_Mountains   Rare Fungi of CA National Forests: https://www.scribd.com/document/432145073/Rare-Fungi-of-California-National-Forests   William Bridge Cooke: https://www.mykoweb.com/articles/PDF/William%20Bridge%20Cooke,%201908-1991.pdf   Caloscypha fulgens (fungus): https://www.mushroomexpert.com/caloscypha_fulgens.html   Hygrophorus goetzii (fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygrophorus_goetzii