Exploring The Life Underground: The Fungus Among Us

Curious about the life underground?   Join us for a tour of the subterranean at West Hills County Park!   Trees and plants grow from soil of course, but what is soil in fact?  It is not merely dirt, but a thriving ecosystem.   There are billions of microbes in just a teaspoon of healthy soil, and those microbes are what make all that grows from that possible.

Frank Piccininni, Co-Founder of The Long Island Conservancy, will guide us through the forest of West Hills County Park and share his insights into how fungal networks within the soil interplay with the tree and plant populations within the forest.

What sorts of soil do oaks, beeches and other native trees prefer?  What happens to soil when it is disturbed by construction, or by invasive plants or insects?  How can restoring soil health aid us in combating invasive plants, pathogens and invasive insects?   We are just scratching the surface!

The Long Island Conservancy is exploring these connections, leading us to a better understanding of the life underground, and “laying the groundwork” for the future of forest management.   Nature works holistically.  Our approach is habitat restoration “from the ground up.”

There are a number of scholarly articles on mycorrhizal networks in soils.  Here one such article that is often cited: Dual mycorrhizal networks: their ecology and relevance.