November Speaker | Morgan Yacullo : Secret Lives of the Log Inhabitants

🍄 Please join us on November 18th for our third general meeting of the season.

FFSC members gather together on the third Tuesday of the month from September through May to catch up, snack, discuss club business, and learn from interesting speakers. Plus, you can bring any fungi you have been lucky enough to find for identification!

This month, our speaker is Morgan Yacullo, who will treat us to a talk about The Secret Lives of the Log Inhabitants.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Secret Life of Logs invites us to look closer at what’s often dismissed as decay. When a tree falls, life ensues. Beneath the bark and within the slow softening of wood unfolds a hidden ecosystem; alive with fungi, slime molds, mosses, invertebrates, and even small vertebrates, all taking part in an intricate exchange of energy and matter.

This talk examines the rich assemblage of local organisms that inhabit decomposing logs and their ecological relationships with fungi. Following an overview of the non-fungal residents, we’ll turn to the fungi most commonly found on and within fallen wood, and then to the more obscure forms that often escape notice: miniscule ascomycetes, crusts, and other inconspicuous groups that persist within the fibers of wood. Come explore the vast diversity of life lodged in logs.

About the Speaker

Morgan Yacullo is a recent Environmental Studies graduate from UC Santa Cruz, where she spent much of her time crawling along the forest floor, photographing the slimy, minuscule marvels of the natural world. Serving as a Lead Curator at the Ken Norris Center for Natural History, she managed the fungarium, led a course on fungal identification, assisted in Christian Schwarz’s Natural History of Fungi course, led numerous field walks, and spent countless hours behind the microscope. She has participated in fungal surveys across diverse California ecosystems—from burn scars to islands and caves—documenting the remarkable variety of fungal life. Alongside academic work, Morgan is a photographer whose practice explores ecological and social resilience through the lens of decomposition.

Can't make it in person?

Join on Zoom

Zoom meeting will open around 6:45 pm.

Would you like to get to know this month's speaker better? Join us for Dinner with the Speaker at 5pm, prior to this event.