The researchers collected morels in the forest that burned in Yosemite National Park. Current park regulations allow the collection of 1 pint per person per day.
Andrew Larson/University of MontanaAndrew Larson/University of Montana
The researchers collected morels in the forest that burned in Yosemite National Park. Current park regulations allow the collection of 1 pint per person per day.

Avid mushroom hunters will tell you that fire is essential for finding morels. These fungi, distinguishable for their dark, honeycomblike caps, pop out of the ground by the bushel in spring after a large wildfire.

This ecological knowledge is mostly anecdotal, shared among morel enthusiasts for recreational hunts and commercial harvesting, in what is now a multimillion-dollar, worldwide industry. Yet few scientific studies have actually quantified morels’ abundance after a fire.

A paper published Oct. 1 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management is one of only a handful of reports documenting and analyzing the patterns of morel growth following a wildfire. The research was led by the University of Montana, with co-authors from the University of Washington and other institutions. All of the researchers are alumni of the UW.

“It’s fun being a researcher working on something where there is still so much unknown,” said co-author Alina Cansler, a research scientist in the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. “We now have a working framework of morels’ distribution after a fire that can be tested in the future.”

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