Scotland's rare tooth fungi: - Plantlife

BACK FROM THE BRINK MANAGEMENT SERIESTooth fungi habitat● Tooth fungi are woodland organisms thataccess nutrients in a partnership withliving trees. In Scotland the host trees arethought to be mainly pine, birch and oak.● Their fruit bodies appear in soil and arenot on dead wood.● There is evidence to suggest that thelarger the area of woodland, the higher thenumber of species (Newton et al, 2002).● As a group they seem to share apreference for fruiting in poor sandy soils,often on banks, tracksides, old quarries orborrow pits where there is a poorlydeveloped humus layer and very littlevascular plant cover.●●●Soils supporting tooth fungi are usuallywell drained although humidity levels areoften relatively high. Humidity might bemaintained for, example, by proximity towater or overhanging branches.The fruiting success of these fungi appearsto be linked to low nitrogen levels in thesoil as well as climatic variables.Fruiting is not limited to old growthforests and fruit bodies do sometimesoccur with young trees or in plantationwoodland on suitable ground.There ishowever, usually a link to old growthforest either through proximity to thathabitat or through scattered old growthforest trees.Ideal tooth fungi habitat © Stewart Taylor3