Golden oyster mushrooms arrived in the United States in the early 2010s. The canary-colored, fluffy mushrooms have since gained popularity as an aesthetically pleasing, tasty addition to numerous recipes—sold in grocery stores, farmers markets, and, more recently, as staple grow-your-own kits for casual gardeners.

But these foreign mushrooms—native to the hardwood forests of East Asia and Russia—come with “great responsibility when growing,” according to conservation scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Florida. In fact, the team warned, the golden oyster invasion has already disrupted a significant portion of the native mushroom ecology in the United States. Suffice to say, these mushrooms are an invasive species .

Their findings, derived from a re

See Full Page