“Wood Wide Webs” – Invisible Forest Networks: Mushroom Discovery Friday Lecture

The San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden is excited to welcome Christian Schwarz back to the Garden! Christian is a well-known expert in the field and author of ‘Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast’ and the upcoming ‘Mushrooms of Cascadia’.

On Friday, we’ll explore “Wood Wide Webs” – the invisible forest networks through which trees, fungi and other organisms communicate and exchange resources in this two-hour lecture. This concept has been covered extensively in mainstream news and popular science outlets, and has even made its way into movies and fiction! But where did this idea come from? What do we actually know about how it works? We’ll talk about the history of the metaphor, take a look at the existing body of research, examine recent challenges to the idea from modern findings, and think about what directions future investigations might need to take.

Instructor Christian Schwarz studied Ecology and Evolution at UC Santa Cruz, where his interest in the world of fungi became irrevocable. Although he is passionate about ecology and biodiversity in general, Christian is most well-known as a field mycologist. He has co-authored two field guides — Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast and the upcoming Mushrooms of Cascadia, both with Noah Siegel. He primarily spends his time seeking, photographing, collecting, teaching about, and publishing research on North American macrofungi, and has served on the IUCN Red List Working Group for North American Fungi. He is a research associate of the Ken Norris Center for Natural History at UC Santa Cruz, where he teaches undergraduate courses in mycology and community science.

6:00 Doors Open
6:30 Lecture Begins
8:00 Book signing

Members enter: Member10Off for $10 off registration. Membership will be verified.

Enroll in an even deeper dive into the world of mushrooms in the 2-day weekend course.