Milby and Metzgar’s research focused on the bryophyte diversity of the Old Growth Forest. Bryophytes are small land plants that lack a vascular system and include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. They are also often used as bioindicators to assess forest health. This study documented 21 moss species and four liverwort species in Stadium Woods, and expanded our knowledge of Virginia’s bryophytes by finding eight moss species and one liverwort species newly recorded in Montgomery County, VA. These collections will also be valuable baseline data for detecting changes to the wood’s ecology in the future. Their project was published in 2021 in Northeastern Naturalist.
Herzog and Metzgar are surveying, collecting and identifying the funga of Stadium Woods to begin determining human impact on the funga and track changes in species diversity over time. So far, 82 mushrooms have been collected from Stadium Woods, which will be identified and stored in the herbarium for future projects. They expect that the heavy foot traffic in Stadium Woods has changed its fungal biodiversity, probably reducing the number of ground-dwelling species compared to other forests and increasing the number of fungi that have a preference for disturbed habitats. The public can view the results and even contribute observations and identifications through an iNaturalist project.