The Microfungi Collections Consortium: A Networked Approach to Digitizing Small Fungi with Large Impacts on the Function and Health of Ecosystems

Digitization TCN: Creating The Microfungi Collections Consortium: A Networked Approach to Digitizing Small Fungi with Large Impacts on the Function and Health of Ecosystems​

Project Summary

Microscopic fungi (microfungi) represent a diverse assemblage that is distributed worldwide and includes bread molds, plant pathogens, powdery mildews, rusts, slime molds, and water molds. A large percentage of these organisms are harmless or even beneficial, but some cause disease and death in animals, plants, and other fungi resulting in major economic loss and serious negative implications for human and ecosystem health. Despite their importance, little is known about their distribution, diversity, ecology, or host associations. This project is a collaborative effort involving 38 institutions in 31 states and aims to consolidate data from specimens housed in biodiversity collections for 2.3 million microfungi specimens and make these data available through online resources. The consolidation and increased accessibility of these data is critical to inform and promote new and innovative research, education and community engagement around this little-known but important group of organisms.

Specimen data generated by this project will be used to assess natural and human-induced environmental changes on microfungi distributions, and evaluate the impact of these changes on the function and health of ecosystems. This project fills a critical gap in the national digitization effort by contributing images, digitizing specimen label data, and linking associated ancillary data for over 1.2 million North American specimens of microfungi. Additionally, nomenclature and taxonomic information will be updated to reflect the newest practices as dictated by the International Codes for Nomenclature. These data will provide a foundation for making informed decisions by agribusinesses, educators, forest managers, government agencies, horticulturalists, policy makers, researchers, and the general public. The broader education goals of this project will be facilitated through the development and implementation of a teaching module for high school biology on the economic importance of microfungi. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (iDigBio.org).

Project Leadership

Project Sponsor:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal Investigators (PIs):
Andrew Miller (Principal Investigator)
Steven Stephenson (Co-Principal Investigator)
Deborah Lewis (Co-Principal Investigator)
Thorsten Lumbsch (Co-Principal Investigator)
Robert Lücking (Former Co-Principal Investigator)

NSF Award Number

1502735

Project Website

http://www.microfungi.org

Project Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/microfungi.org

Collaborators Map

https://www.idigbio.org/content/digitization-tcn-creating-microfungi-collections-consortium-collaborator-map

Project Collaborators

Bishop Museum Clemson University Cornell University Denver Botanic Garden Farlow Herbarium Field Museum Illinois Natural History Survey Iowa State University Louisiana State University Miami University Michigan State University North Carolina State University New York Botanical Garden Oregon State University Academy of Natural Sciences Purdue University Rocky Mountain Research Station Rutgers University San Francisco State University State University of New York U.S. National Fungus Collections University of Alabama University of Arkansas University of Arizona University of California, Berkeley University of Florida University of Georgia University of Kansas University of Michigan University of Minnesota University of Nebraska University of North Carolina University of Richmond University of Tennessee University of Wisconsin University of Wyoming Utah State University Washington State University