Identifier Profile: @sofiazed1

This is the twenty-third entry in an ongoing monthly (or almost monthly!) series profiling the amazing identifiers of iNaturalist.

I met Sofia Zvolanek and her mother Jenny at an iNaturalist meet-up arranged by @thebeachcomber in Sydney back in 2022 and was really impressed by her passion for nature - especially fungi. She’s currently the top identifier of verifiable fungus observations in Australia with about 80k identifications made, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to profile her here.

Currently a 23 year old graduate from Sydney, Sofia’s been living in a suburb by the bush for about 18 years, and tells me

I think I've always been interested in nature - the colours and patterns and shapes and minute details, interacting with things and watching how they behave, seeking out interesting creatures under logs, collecting cool shells and other objects from the beach. I've been picking up bugs since I learned to walk. My interests were nurtured by my Mum - as a kid I spent a lot of time with her gardening, bushwalking, and doing crafts. I also spent a lot of time outdoors up trees or in the bushes.

Her first memories of mushrooms involve her staining the walls of her cubby by rubbing Coprinellus everywhere (“artistic spirit I guess”), but she really got into fungi over the past few years, her interest sparked by friends who brought them some foraged mushrooms.  “I discovered that mushrooms could actually taste nice,” she says. “From there I gained an interest in identification for foraging purposes, which grew into identification for curiosity's sake after I started using iNaturalist and the information became much more accessible to me.”

Sofia got hooked on iNat in 2020, when she had to make five observations for a university class. 

…and from there I did not stop. Then the lockdowns hit, and I was spending a lot of time at home or in the local bush, walking for fun or to travel to uni once classes were back on, while the mushroom season was in full swing. The ephemeral and mysterious nature of mushrooms, along with their interesting and varied appearances, makes them particularly appealing to my novelty-seeking brain, and I decided to answer the endless stream of “Oooh what's that?” by photographing and posting them all to iNaturalist. From there I juggled classes and assignments while spending as much time as possible on identification sprees or cram-studying the variety in fungal morphology by scrolling through the iNaturalist observed species lists order by order or family by family (for example) to get an idea of what exists and how it's arranged in the tree of life. I've learned pretty much everything I know about broader fungal taxonomy through iNaturalist and its users.

Funny story - I spent my first few weeks on iNaturalist under the mistaken impression that @thebeachcomber was one of our course instructors, because he was so diligent about welcoming my classmates and I to the platform.

And she gives back by adding a lot of identifications, both on her phone when she has a break or is in transit and via the iNat website. Her current strengths are Agaricomycetes, Xylariales and Lecanoromycetes (mostly Cladoniaceae), as well as a few slime molds (Mycetozoa).

Most of the time I rely on my memory of patterns observed while cram-studying the observed species lists, but when a species or taxa piques my interest I'll go on research binges to dig up as many relevant taxonomy papers and descriptions as I can find in a few hours to gain a better understanding of morphology and species delineations. Unfortunately most of the Australian compiled resources are years out of date, with old or misapplied names. I'm also not subscribed to any of the journals, so I tend to just put the taxon into Google Scholar and hope for the best.

These tend to be followed by an hour or more of scanning through the observations of the most relevant overarching taxonomic group to apply the newfound IDs to unidentified observations. I've also recently been making use of the “Similar Taxa” tab to help resolve the frequent mix-ups between similar-looking but often widely taxonomically distributed genera of earthstars and coralloid fungi, along with some other groups.

And why add all those IDs? “Sorting things and solving problems is satisfying and helps contribute to global knowledge of fungi,” she explains. “Every so often I learn something new or notice something scientifically interesting. Sharing my interests with others is fun and I enjoy people's excitement when they learn something new. Finding friends and a community, and making connections. I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time.”

Now that she’s graduated from university, Sofia’s current plans are to find a job and get settled into “adult life,” but she may return to school for a graduate degree in the future, hopefully focusing on fungal taxonomy or ecology. She also has a pipe dream of starting a mycological garden “to showcase the beauty of different fungal forms and give the general public a better understanding and appreciation of fungi.”

Need tips for making identifiable fungus observations? Sofia’s got some advice:

• Take multiple photos from multiple different angles and make sure they’re in focus. The most important is a wide shot showing the fungus in its habitat. Also, close-ups of the whole fruiting body from different angles (top, side, underside, etc), whether or not there is a stem and what it looks like. Acquiring a small mirror such as a compact or dental mirror will help capture those critical underside and stem angles if you want to leave the fungal fruiting body intact.
• Other useful things would be closeups of different structures and textures on the fruiting body hymenium structure (gills/pores/teeth/smoothness) and attachment to the stem/substrate, as well as the base of the stem and any other lumps, bumps, tufts or shreds on the fruiting body.
• Breaking or bruising can cause some fungi to react to air, which can help with identification, and you can also make spore prints (only a thumb-sized part of the hymenium is needed). 

Some of Sofia’s favorite fungi taxa: Bird's nest fungi (Nidulariaceae), Cannonball fungi (Sphaerobolus), Crown-tipped coral fungi (Artomyces), Pretty-lips (Calostoma), and regular Coral fungi (Ramaria). Taphrina cornu-cervae is my favourite plant pathogen. Psathyrella aquatica is average looking, but pretty cool because it’s (I think) the only known agaric that fruits under water. There are many other aquatic fungi, but most of them are single-celled or have insignificant fruiting bodies. Rosecomb deformities (for example https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164406178) are pretty wacky looking.

You can see Sofia (and her mum!) at about nine seconds in on this interview video with Thomas Mesaglio!

Posted on February 23, 2024 10:38 PM by tiwane