[Mycology] Vitamin D/nutritional information on fungi

[Joe Skulan]

I've been reading papers on ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) in wild  
mushrooms. Most of the information is on mushrooms from Finland or  
East Asia; I've not been able to find any published information on  
ergocalciferol in North American mushrooms. I'm thinking of analyzing  
a bunch of them myself, and comparing fresh mushrooms with ones that  
have been sun dried (which should be enriched in vitamin D), but I  
don't want to reinvent the wheel. Is anyone aware of any data?

More generally, there appears to be a general lack of any kind of  
nutritional analysis of most wild mushrooms. I can't find anything at  
all on morels, for example. As far as I can tell, nutritional  
information on commercially sold wild mushroom packages seems just to  
be copied from analysis of A. bisporus or shiitake. Am I missing  
something?

Finally, I thought I'd just throw this out there: the whole business  
of animal like substances in fungi interests me (animals possibly  
being, phylogenetically speaking, just highly modified fungi), and  
makes me wonder about what else might be in them. Do fungi produce any  
other 'animal' sterols (like testosterone or estrogen) or bioactive  
peptides like oxytocin?

Cheers,

Joe Skulan