Distribution of Wood Ears (Auricularia auricula-judae) Based on Surrounding Environmental Factors

• Sophia Volper

  Juniata College

  Author

• Cheyenna Walter

  Juniata College

  Author

• Alex Young

  Juniata College

  Author

• Mathilde Lefort

  Juniata College

  Author

Wood ears (Auricularia auricula-judae) are a wild mushroom, often enjoyed as a delicacy and also used for traditional medicinal practices. Because of their medicinal and nutritional benefits, these mushrooms are a popular and sought-after choice, but they can prove difficult to find. Because of this, we wanted to explore their abundance and various quantitative and qualitative factors that are commonly associated with them to hopefully make locating them easier and more frequent. Although there is already information on this topic, we wanted to extend it with other variables that are uncommon in existing material like soil moisture, distance from water, non-tree flora, etc. Based on already existing information, we hypothesize that we will find them near water and mostly on dead deciduous trees as they prefer these, specifically beeches (genus Fagus), spindles (Euonymus europaeus), and elders (Sambucus nigra). Our results found that higher temperatures were associated with fewer amounts and smaller sizes of wood ears (Auricularia auricula-judae), which makes sense as some literature indicates they prefer colder temperatures to hotter. Additionally, their size was also found to be significantly associated with proximity to water, growing larger as they grew closer to the water, proving their preference for damp environments.

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