Flag for Taxon: Stereum versicolor
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mkremedios | Stereum versicolor |
I was trying to figure out what the difference between S. ostrea and S. versicolor are and seem to mostly find references to them being synonyms so far (might be wrong) |
Nov. 23, 2020 14:54:29 +0000 | jameskm |
Not enough evidence to take action at this time. |
Comments
It's been suggested to be in the S. hirsutum "complex" too, by Welden in 1971 (https://doi.org/10.2307/3758046, and on cyberliber for free). I don't have a great grasp on what S. versicolor really is, but I would guess that these red-bleeding observations from Puerto Rico are it: https://mushroomobserver.org/observer/index_observation?east=-65.8048&north=18.4677&q=1Y6XX&south=18.1088&west=-67.1555
I'd say there's no reason to think S. versicolor should be considered synonymous with North American "S. ostrea" (S. fasciatum, lobatum, and subtomentosum) especially since those don't bleed red, and probably not synonymous with whatever the real S. ostrea is, seeing that it was described a world over in Indonesia. All I can really say for sure is that Stereum is just a big mess that can only be cleared up a phylogenetic approach.
Okay - if it is alright to ask, so the observations in S. versicolor should be from central and south America, while what we're all calling "S ostrea" but is actually the 3 you listed is in north america. And the real S ostrea is in and around Indonesia. Roughly speaking. Based on that, I might put a number of observations called S. versicolor right now into... well I'm not sure, but, not S. versicolor.
I realize I should have linked the source I was looking at earlier (not to argue the point but to make it available) so, https://mushroomobserver.org/name/show_name/3748
And I suppose I was wondering if it creates problems that both S ostrea and S versicolor share the same exact common name of "false turkey tail" in the iNaturalist system which maybe leads to people suggesting one meaning the other, not knowing the scientific name offhand (I hadn't) or just not noticing when typing in their suggestion remembered from some guide or prior experience, using the common name.
Maybe it would be best for people in our group to identify the "false turkey tails" as just Stereum and leave it at that for now? Or just put them all in S ostrea (or try to sort into S hirsutum, fasciatum, or lobatum as best we can?) and expect one day they will need to be resorted?
These questions don't need to be answered especially if there really isn't a clear answer currently. But if you have an opinion on it what people on iNaturalist might best do with Stereum observations to best respect what is known that is also welcome.
Edit I just noticed you have many links to resources on it in your bio and I can try and use those to understand, too
to clarify, by "our group" I was thinking of the WI mycological society on here, not meaning "us 3 with comments on this resolved flag"
The other thing I would like to ask ahead of time is, is it ok if I @ you to look at Stereum observations sometimes? If not for any reason that's fine.
You bring up a great point about how to handle Stereum identifications and it's something I think about a lot. Personally I've taken a pretty chill approach to it for the time being, with the understanding that properly characterizing Stereum on iNaturalist and similar platforms requires 1) that we actually know what organisms the names represent and how to distinguish them from similar species, and 2) that we can systematically correct thousands of identifications until the computer vision gets not dumb, because that is definitely what most people look at first for ID help, and until it stops suggesting S. ostrea and S. versicolor we'll never be rid of the names in NA. As such we are not in a position to start correcting most of the world's Stereum observations, however, once my paper is published you bet your bottom I am going to troll through this website and correct every single North American "Stereum ostrea" (and S. versicolor). So far I've just been IDing as S. ostrea and writing the actual ID in the comment.
As for your source on S. versicolor, Ryvarden is just... wrong lol, he takes a very lumper approach like others have done in the past, nothing new. I think it's a little ridiculous when relatively new publications go about changing taxonomy (or describing new species!) based on morphology when it's clearly not reliable for species delimitation on its own and it's SO cheap and easy to do barcode sequencing these days. Also that book is the reason all the big Stereum in AU and NZ are being identified as S. versicolor. I have pics of the book if you want to read it.
As for your mushroom club, I'd encourage you to start IDing "S. ostrea" as S. fasciatum, S. lobatum, or S. subtomentosum (at least in a comment under an S. ostrea ID, for iNat). I have found no evidence that S. hirsutum exists east of the Rockies, usually people mis-ID S. complicatum, S. gausapatum or S. subtomentosum. There's info in my preprint for how to ID them or you can just bug me on every Stereum observation, I love it anyway. Tag me all you like!
I assume this species is treated in the Stereum s.l. monograph in Flora Neotropica? Does that say anything useful?
As for what to do with the species, I would recommend using the "correct" names as well. Once your paper comes out, the easiest thing to do will be to do a split that takes identifications of S. ostrea and sorts them into S. lobatum/fasciatum/subtomentosum. Unless you have some geographic patterns in the paper, though, this probably means that things will all get set back to "Stereum" or maybe to "Complex Stereum ostrea" if we make such a thing. So, if there are IDs as S. lobatum/fasciatum/subtomentosum, that will become the ID for the observation. I think it would probably be easier to start using those names now and have things sit at "Stereum" rather than go through the almost 10,000 observations later.
Congrats on the manuscript, by the way. Looks like it will be a helpful contribution towards working out this genus.
Not at all actually. The only species addressed in Welden's 2010 monograph are S. ostrea, S. illudens, S. frustulatum var frustulatum, S. frustulatum var subpileatum, S. striatum var. ochraceoflavum, and S. hirsutum. Very limited synonym lists too, so it's not under S. ostrea. I found that book.. very unhelpful. I should say Xylobolus subpileatus and frustulatus are pretty far removed from Stereum too, not sure why some authors insist on combining them.
Yeah I think creating an S. ostrea complex for the purposes of iNaturalist IDs would be a good idea, as some number of observations are not identifiable past "it's one of the three" and there's probably more than three in that clade anyway. Their geographic distributions are gradients at best, with S. fasciatum and S. subtomentosum being roughly more "northerly" and S. lobatum occupying about the same distribution but extending further into the tropics. S. fasciatum starts to fall out right about 28 to 29N, replaced by S. lobatum, but I have found some observations that look like it in Mexico at high altitude. I think S. subtomentosum has some presence in the North American northwest (like around Seattle and Vancouver Island) but otherwise the S. ostrea complex and S. complicatum seem to be replaced by S. hirsutum west of the Rockies. Nailing down distribution of species is a work in progress and I really only have hypotheses currently, so global phylogeny will really help with that.
And thanks, I should have said manuscript submitted for review in the next week or few!
Just looking at the data, like a third of the observations of this are in eastern N. A. outside of Florida and aren't this if anyone has a day on their hands to kill.
@sarahduhon, any thoughts? Stereum versicolor was described from Jamaica.