Pluteus still lives; I am his colleague and am posting this message on his behalf.
Pluteus is still remanded on police bail following his arrest, a year and a half ago, for matters entirely unrelated to hallucinogenic mushrooms. The case carries on and it seems likely Pluteus will receive a custodial sentence of perhaps two years when he is eventually sentenced in several month's time. Although he continues to research part-time, his bail conditions deny him the use of the internet apart for strictly academic purposes and to his sincere regret Pluteus cannot actively participate in this forum. He does however wish to make the following information known to you.
Firstly, Pluteus' intial phylogenetic work on the P. cyanescens complex was rather incidental to his funded research and has not been written up for publication, although it may yet be; nevertheless, we will soon be uploading all of Pluteus' new Psilocybe DNA nucleotide sequences onto the GenBank database (at the NCBI website), so that this data is freely available to all researchers - including Pluteus himself when he returns to this work as is his long-term intention (we also understand there is a large-scale sequencing project of Psilocybe in progress headed by R. Vilgalys). As soon as the sequences are uploaded we will notify bluemeanie and others of the accession numbers as well as any relevant papers that have been submitted.
Secondly, Pluteus wishes to make clear that a definitive picture of P. cyansescens biogeography remains elusive pending further analysis of a much broader range of specimens representing all major localities (importantly, the 1946 type collection and auxillary collections of P. cyanescens which reside here at our workplace remains unanalyzed), and one that also integrates detailed information about morphological and mating behaviour traits. The major points which Pluteus' study demonstrated were that (a) populations of P. cyanescens in the UK at scales from nationwide to individual fruiting sites are non-clonal, contrary to what had been suggested by some authors; (b) most specimens of PNW cyanescens and British cyanescens were consistently genetically different at the single gene examined, with these differences being of the order of magnitude expected of two sister species; and (c) - not so far reported to anyone - UK P. cyanescens comprises at least three major genetically distinguishable subpopulations with the rarest type being correlated with 'naturalized' fruiting settings (e.g. several sites in Northamptonshire and Berkshire where morphologically typical P. cyanescens fruits directly from grassland with very little detectable underlying woody debris), with another of the sub-populations much more closely related to typical PNW lineages than it is to the others. To draw any final conclusions about the ultimate origins of the various P. cyanescens lineages based on these findings (and other more detailed ones originally reported to bluemeanie) would be premature; however some of the inferences reported by bluemeanie, particularly in terms of there having been an introduction from the PNW and also secondary introductions, can be regarded as well-supported if not yet statistically incontrovertible.
Silverwolf, Pluteus notes that you have been corresponding with Peter Shaw, a splendid ecologist, in relation to active / non-active Psilocybes. Pluteus has previously published with Peter but is not in close contact with him and wonders, not having read Peter's recent articles, if Peter is considering this issue from a phylogenetic perspective. As Pluteus has banged on about here before, Moncalvo, et al. (2002) showed that the genus Psilocybe is polyphyletic, being made up of two relatively unrelated lineages, one of which (containing the type species P. montana) produces non-active fruitbodies, with the other producing mostly active fruitbodies (which leads to ironic nomenclatural consequences).
Finally, as a colleague of Pluteus' also working in evolutionary mycology, we have both noted with distaste MJshroomer's comments on this thread along the lines of "Those who work on the DNA of the mushrooms are not into mycology, they are into DNA. Molecular science has no interest in mycology as a whole. Only in the classification of it."
MJshroomer, you might have more accurately written "morphological features" instead of "DNA" or "molecular science". Seriously, your comments show an outstanding ignorance of the role of DNA analysis in illuminating all kinds of issues in mycology, from developmental processes, to community interactions, to dispersal, to the evolution of different chemical traits... the list is as limitless as the biology of these fungi is fascinating. MJ, you have somehow managed to overlook a vast body of literature, from Hibbett to Vilgalys to Bruns, that speaks for the consummate passion of molecular mycologists for truly knowing their study group: the fungi. We begin to think that perhaps you are the one with the limited outlook, the one who sees "mycology" purely in terms of how people can identify Psilocybes in the field, and the one who even within this very narrow context is resisting new and powerful ways to understand the relationships between the organisms you study. And all because morphological features remain paramount in the field! But, after all, we molecular scientists are only too happy to include morphological information in our studies, and, in fact, to use DNA to specifically address questions about morphology; whereas you seem closed to this approach. Really, it could be reasonably said that we are more interested in morphology than you are, in the sense that we want to get to the bottom of how morphological traits evolve and are specified - and the fact that this will provide empirical measures of the reliability of different morphological traits in indicating natural classifications is rather secondary to its potential for uncovering the *adaptive* role of these features - something you do not concern yourself with at all. So how is it exactly, then, that you are the one taking an interest in mycology as a whole, and we are not? How is it that we are the ones purely taking an interest in classification, and you are not? MJ, when you neglect to consider DNA, you neglect to understand lifeforms at their most fundamental levels. You neglect, in other words, mycology as a whole.
In any case, we find it contemptible that a field mycologist of your stature would spread such misinformation about us. We in no way wish to belittle your contributions to the study of Psilocybe diversity, MJShroomer, but a little perspective-based modesty would suit you better. Please do not tell us what we are or are not "into".
This post concludes communications to this forum from the username 'Pluteus' for the forseeable future. I will let various of you know the fate of Pluteus, when his fate becomes clear.
Bestest.
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Some of these posts are very old and might contain outdated information. You may wish to search for newer posts instead.
Silverwolf 
koraks 
Edit 
Reply 
1 2 3 4 all )
Silverwolf
mjshroomer
pluteus
Zen Peddler
MagicRooms
