Location: Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-22000-327-007-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2022
End Date: Sep 30, 2024
Objective:
Fungi cause 70% of known plant diseases and often the only way to stop a disease from occurring is to exclude it from a country or region where potentially affected crops grow. To ensure that disease causing fungi do not enter the U.S., plants entering the U.S. are inspected at ports of entry. Identification of plant-associated fungi is enhanced by the availability of accurately identified voucher specimens, such as those housed at the U.S. National Fungus Collections. The objective of this agreement is to provide services to the Cooperator (USDA, APHIS, PPQ) to enhance the ability to identify plant-associated fungi and the ability to prevent the entry of plant-quarantine significant fungi into the U.S. It will serve to increase the number of specimens available in the U.S. National Fungus Collections and records available in the U.S. National Fungus Collections Databases. Data from current geographic and taxonomic literature will be evaluated for inclusion in the databases to enhance identification methods and to determine if a fungus already occurs in the U.S. or if it should be excluded.
Approach:
ARS will provide access to curated collections in the U.S. National Fungus Collections for use as reference specimens for identifying fungal specimens intercepted at ports-of-entry and collected from domestic sources, and international surveys. In addition ARS will increase the number of records available in the database of fungi on plants around the world and provide accurate scientific names of plant-quarantine significant fungi. Additional resources are made available to Cooperator such as accurate fungal names, specimen data from U.S. National Fungus Collections, database of taxonomic literature, including entry of new references, and deposition of specimens in the U.S. National Fungus Collections. Data are continuously added to the World Fungi Database that now exceeds 700,000 reports of fungi on plant hosts throughout the world by reviewing mycological literature as it is published as well as reviewing older literature for records.
