Assessment Notes

Justification

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus is probably an ectomycorrhizal fungus associated with Tsuga heterophylla, at various different stages of forest development. Its distribution is restricted to the coastal areas of western North America from British Columbia into northern California. Despite medium-sized, charismatic blue sporocarps, it is obviously very rare and only reported a few times. Despite being a Survey and Manage species in the North West Forest Plan and looked for during the last 20 years, the species was never encountered in Oregon and Washington. The suspected population size is estimated to be less than 2000 and the current trend is unknown. Therefore, it considered under criteria D1 as Near Threatened (NT).no r

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Taxonomic notes

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus was not until 2016 distinguished from the eastern species N. caeruleoporus (Audet and Luther 2016). Existing records in databases such as Mycoportal.org are easily assigned to either species based on their distinct distributions. The eastern species has been more often recorded than the western species.

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Geographic range

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus is confined to the coastal regions of British Columbia and Vancouver Island (Canada), the Cascades in Washington and Oregon, southwards along the coast into Sonoma County in California (USA). It is restricted to the distribution area of Tsuga heterophylla.

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Population and Trends

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus is only known from a few scattered sites in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and in coastal California (Audet and Luther 2016, Castellano et al, 1999). It is obviously a rare fungus, being a large and charismatic blue mushroom species and yet only reported up to a total of at most 30 sites (mycoportal.org, 2018). Despite being a Survey and Manage species and looked for during the last 20 years (Castellano et al. 1999), it is not reported from suitable habitat in Oregon and Washington. Casual observations of this species in the area covered by the Northwest Forest Plan have been made (see mushroomobserver.org). Assuming two fungal genotypes per site and the total number of localities to be fewer than 100, the estimated total number of mature individuals will not exceed 2000.

Population Trend: unknown

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Habitat and Ecology

Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus is terrestrial, presumably forming ectomycorrhizas with Tsuga heterophylla, in various different stages of forest development, also with young trees. Fruiting repeatedly at the same location, implying its mycelia to be long-lived (cf Dahlberg and Mueller 2011), but most often not in consecutive years. Often fruiting on non-natural disturbed soil surfaces, such as road banks.

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Threats

Threats includes wild-fire, pervasive drought periods. bark beetle outbreaks.

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Conservation Actions

It is listed as a Strategy 1 Fungal species in the Northwest Forest Plan (Castellano et al. 1999) (as Albatrellus caeruleoporus), and has been surveyed for for since 1998.

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Use and Trade

The species is not known to be used.

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Source and Citation

Vellinga, E.C. 2019. Neoalbatrellus subcaeruleoporus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T95385798A95385801. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T95385798A95385801.en .Accessed on 3 February 2024

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• Country occurrence