The crimped gill fungus and climate change
The crimped gill fungus is expanding dramatically, as a result of the warmer climate.
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The crimped gill fungus is a small fungus that occurs on the dead trunks and branches of various deciduous trees, particularly beech and hazel, but also oak, ash and beech. Until recently, this species had a very continental distribution in Europe and was totally absent from the lowlands of northwest Europe. The first sightings in the Netherlands were in the late 1980s, in south Limburg. By about 1993 the species was known to be in a few sites in Limburg, east Brabant and around Nijmegen, and in one isolated spot in Utrecht. In 1997 the northern boundary of the Dutch area of distribution was the latitude of the Rijn valley, though there were some outliers further north. Rapid expansion followed, and the species has now reached the sandy soils of Drenthe.
The increase in the crimped gill fungus has been attributed to the warmer summers of the last twenty years. It cannot be explained by an increase in dead branches of deciduous trees: there were always plenty of these around.
Because it was once very rare, the crimped gill fungus is still on the Red List of fungi.
