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).
Resources
Citizen Science and Outreach Projects
Current Research
Proposed research questions include:
- What are the effects of anthropogenic disturbance to the environment on the temporal and spatial distribution and phenology of microfungi? Human-induced impacts may include downstream effects due to land use changes in agricultural and natural ecosystems, the introduction of herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides, and increased atmospheric pollution.
- Can we use historic and current distributional patterns of microfungi as models for the early detection of invasive species to reduce their potential deleterious effects? Can we use these same data to detect endemism and biodiversity hotspots in microfungi?
- How do climatic changes influence the dispersal, distribution, and functioning of soil microfungi?
Project Leadership
Project Sponsor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Project leadership
Andrew Miller (Principle Investigator)
Phil Anders (Biological Informatician)
Elizabeth Lippoldt (Project Manager)
Scott Bates (Project Consultant)
Alex Kuhn (Digitizer)
NSF Award Number
Project Website
Project Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/microfungi.org
Project Instagram
Project Collaborators
Tatyana Livshultz – Academy of Natural Sciences
Barbara Kennedy, Richard Pyle – Bishop Museum
Julia Kerrigan – Clemson University
Cathie Hodge, Scott LaGreca – Cornell University
Melissa Islam, Vera Evenson – Denver Botanic Garden
Don Pfister – Farlow Herbarium
Thorsten Lumbsch – Field Museum
Deborah Lewis – Iowa State University
Jennie Kluse – Louisiana State University
Michael Vincent – Miami University
Alan Fryday – Michigan State University
Marc Cubeta – North Carolina State University
Roy Halling – New York Botanical Garden
Joey Spatafora – Oregon State University
Cathie Aime – Purdue University
Brian Geils – Rocky Mountain Research Station
Jim White, Ning Zhang – Rutgers University
Dennis Desjardin – San Francisco State University
Alex Weir – State University of New York
Lisa Castelbury – U.S. National Fungus Collections
Martha Powell – University of Alabama
Steve Stephenson – University of Arkansas
Betsy Arnold – University of Arizona
Brent Mishler, Andrew Doran – University of California, Berkeley
Matthew Smith – University of Florida
Marin Brewer – University of Georgia
Robert Lichtwardt – University of Kansas
Tim James, Matthew Foltz – University of Michigan
George Weiblen – University of Minnesota
Robert Kaul – University of Nebraska
Carol Ann McCormick – University of North Carolina
John Hayden – University of Richmond
Karen Hughes – University of Tennessee
Mary Ann Feist, Sharon West – University of Wisconsin
Larry Schmidt – University of Wyoming
Mary Barkworth – Utah State University
Dean Glawe – Washington State University