Explore the mushrooms of the remote Pacific islands. Thomas Jenkinson will highlight recent results from the ongoing project to document the mushroom diversity of the Federated States of Micronesia. Travel to the islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae in the Micronesia/Polynesia biodiversity conservation hotspot. The habitat these islands provide for unique organisms are under increasing threat. Forest habitats on these islands have been lost at an alarming rate in the last decades. The Micronesia Biodiversity Project incorporates information from surveys of plant, invertebrate, and mushroom diversity in investigating the effects of deforestation on these remote islands. This presentation will focus on the new and interesting mushrooms documented over two seasons of field surveys in 2009 and 2010.

Thomas Jenkinson received his M.S. in Biology from San Francisco State University, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. Thomas has collaborated on mycology research projects in the U.S. and around the world and has served as a past council member of the Mycological Society of San Francisco.