Fungarium specimens: a largely untapped source in global change biology and beyond

Abstract

One contribution of 16 to a theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.For several hundred years, millions of fungal sporocarps have been collected and deposited in worldwide collections (fungaria) to support fungal taxonomy. Owing to large-scale digitization programs, metadata associated with the records are now becoming publicly available, including information on taxonomy, sampling location, collection date and habitat/substrate information. This metadata, as well as data extracted from the physical fungarium specimens themselves, such as DNA sequences and biochemical characteristics, provide a rich source of information not only for taxonomy but also for other lines of biological inquiry. Here, we highlight and discuss how this information can be used to investigate emerging topics in fungal global change biology and beyond. Fungarium data are a prime source of knowledge on fungal distributions and richness patterns, and for assessing red-listed and invasive species. Information on collection dates has been used to investigate shifts in fungal distributions as well as phenology of sporocarp emergence in response to climate change. In addition to providing material for taxonomy and systematics, DNA sequences derived from the physical specimens provide information about fungal demography, dispersal patterns, and are emerging as a source of genomic data. As DNA analysis technologies develop further, the importance of fungarium specimens as easily accessible sources of information will likely continue to grow.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.

Biogeography of plant root‐associated fungal communities in the North Atlantic region mirrors climatic variability

“…Over large scales, abiotic factors including temperature (Zhou et al, ) and pH (Glassman, Wang, & Bruns, ; Tedersoo et al, ) have been shown to be the strongest predictors for fungal distributions (Timling, Walker, Nusbaum, Lennon, & Taylor, ). The importance of temperature in determining biogeographical patterns among fungi (Andrew, Diez, James, & Kauserud, ) highlights the potential sensitivity of these communities to climate change.…”

Mining new sources of natural history observations for disease interactions

“…Equally as important, this information can be used to target the acquisition of new material for preservation in herbarium collections. The usefulness of herbarium specimens from many years ago for DNA isolation and analysis (e.g., Malmstrom et al., ; Andrew et al., ; Heberling and Burke, ) means that locating extant populations also makes it possible to compare past and current genetic structure. Heberling and Isaac () suggested using iNaturalist as a direct supplement to new herbarium specimens by linking the online observations to the herbarium sample.…”

“…Multiple studies have utilized museum collections to investigate wild plant–pathogen systems (Ristaino et al., ; Li et al., ; Alexander et al., ; Saville et al., ; Andrew et al., ), among other plant ecological interactions (e.g., plant–animal interaction, Beauvais et al., , or phytosociology, Hanan‐A et al., ). There are two types of natural history collections relevant to such disease‐related studies: pathogen‐centered collections that directly target and preserve the disease‐causing organism and broader plant‐centered collections that nonetheless may retain evidence of the disease occurrence and cause.…”

Seed Banks as Incidental Fungi Banks: Fungal Endophyte Diversity in Stored Seeds of Banana Wild Relatives

“…Collections are an important resource for biodiversity research, as they provide curated specimens spanning time and space ( Funk, 2018 ; Pearce et al, 2020 ). Beyond prospecting for novel fungal diversity in dedicated mycological collections such as fungaria and culture collections ( Dentinger et al, 2016 ; Andrew et al, 2018 , 2019 ; Huang et al, 2018 ), we now recognise the potential for plant collections to be a source of fungal diversity too. Daru et al (2018) showed that sequencing dried herbarium specimens can reveal novel endophyte diversity, with the caveat that it is extremely rare to recover viable endophytes in culture.…”