February 2009
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Supplement to Mycologia Vol. 60(1) February 2009 Newsletter of the Mycological Society of America — In This Issue — Feature Article Fungi in the Encyclopedia of Life MSA Business President’s Corner Secretary’s Email Express MSA Official Roster 2009 MSA Call for Nominations for Council Mycological News Ángel Mercado Sierra US mycologists win prestigious awards in the Netherlands Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Summer Field Program 2009 ISHAM VI Latin American Mycological Congress MSA Meeting 2009 2009 MSA Annual Foray MSA Auction! MSA Meeting T-Shirt Design Competition XLII Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology Introduction to Food- and Air-Borne fungi IMC9 the Biology of Fungi Mushrooms, Russia and History Cybliber update Mycologist’s Bookshelf An update on the genus Chaetomium Lichen Biology Peronosporaceae of Korea Phycology, 4th Edition Phytophthora : Identifying Species by Morphology and DNA Fingerprints The Aspergilli: Genomic, Medical Aspects, Biotechnology, and Research Methods Recently Received Books Previously Listed Books Take a Break Crossword – The Good, The Bad and The Obscure Cookery Corner – Fall Vegetables in Red Wine Sauce Mycological Classifieds Mold testing and identification services Mycological Jobs PhD Student in Mycology PhD Student in Molecular Ecology Ganoderma Mycology On-Line Calendar of Events lucidum Sustaining Members Ganoderma lucidum — Important Dates — February 19-25, 2009 var. lucidum collected on FNQ Mycoblitz: First fungal foray in Far North Queensland Lake Tinaroo, Queensland, Australia January 7, 2009 at Myak - March 15, 2009 Deadline for Submission to Inoculum 60(2) ka City, Florida from the April 18-19 , 2009 Mid-Atlantic Mycological Conference (MASMC) base of a Live Oak tree Systematic Botany and Microbiology Laboratory , Beltsville, MD (Quercus sp.). Images: May 25-29, 2009 ISHAM congress nature material and col - Tokyo, Japan May 31-June 4, 2009 lection, to scale. Mi - 14th International Sclerotinia Workshop North Carolina State University , Wilmington, NC croscopy results: pores 3- July 25-30, 2009 MSA Meeting with Botanical Society of America 5 per mm; spores (8) Snowbird, UT September 20-25, 2009 8.5-12.5 x 6-7.5 µm X National Congress of Mycology of Mexico Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico —Neil Dollinger November 15-19, 2009 [email protected] Asian Mycological Congress (AMC2009) & XIth International Marine and Freshwater Mycology Symposium (IMFMS) National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan Editor — Jinx Campbell Dept. of Coastal Sciences, Gulf Coast Research Lab University of Southern Mississippi 703 East Beach Drive, Ocean Springs, MS 39564 Telephone: (228) 818-8878, Fax: (228) 872-4264 Email: [email protected] MYCOLOGY FEATURE Fungi in the Encyclopedia of Life The Encyclopedia of Life ( www.eol.org ) aims to Major points of discussion included: be an online resource that will provide information for every species on the planet. Each species will have its Fungal Taxonomy and EoL own page, which will include images, nomenclatural The Catalogue of Life ( www.catalogueof-life.org ) notes, natural history, and references. EoL will take ad - provides the default taxonomy of EoL. However at the vantage of new technologies to pull resources from meeting, Paul Kirk (of CABI) gave the taxonomy used across the web and reassemble them in a common for - by the new Dictionary of the Fungi (currently in press) mat. No person will be expected to “write” individual to David Patterson (Director of the EOL Biodiversity pages, rather, curators will serve as guides to the re - Informatics Group). These data will be used by EoL as sources that can be used to assemble hundreds of pages of January 2010. at a time, and will also edit assembled pages. The EoL The group had a lively discussion about how to will ask for permission to use materials (nothing will be handle disagreements over taxonomy and nomencla - stolen), and will take care to give credit to curators and ture. Obviously there is a tension between having EoL especially those who created the original resources. or CoL as a central authority, and using EoL as a tool EoL aims to be a global effort, and its Institutional to offer different classification schemes. Although the Council includes partners from South America, Eu - group debated deferring the creation of EoL pages until rope, Australasia, Asia and Africa. there is a global taxonomic consensus, the majority In August 2008 a group of mycologists met in opinion was that the community should start creating State College, PA, USA, to begin a conversation about pages now, and not wait for a global consensus. the inclusion of fungi in the Encyclopedia of Life. A The group also discussed the taxonomic scope of detailed summary of what was said can be found at “fungi” on EoL, and concluded that “fungi” should in - http://synthesis.eol.org/synthesismeetings /fungi2008 . clude all groups traditionally studied by mycologists, In this document we provide a synopsis of the group’s including mycetozoa, stramenopiles, etc. discussion. We note that much remains to be decided. If the EoL for fungi is to succeed it will require the ac - Resources for Building Pages tive involvement of many of us. EoL acknowledges that a majority of species are known only from the original species description. For The group met with five Goals in mind: these, limited data are available. A species page may Goal 1: Critique the design of EoL fungal pages; rec - contain a name and nothing else. In fact, there are al - ommend changes. ready stub pages for every fungal species listed by the Catalogue of Life. Goal 2: Identify web resources. What data are avail - Pages for sequence groups will also be possible. able for all species, what data can be used for spe - In other words, if a species is identified from sequence cific target groups? data only that species can have its own EoL page. For Goal 3: Develop a strategy for thinking through choic - more information on this effort contact Tom Bruns ( bo - es about species or clades that should be a priority [email protected] ). for EoL. Develop a strategy for assembling fungal Resources common to all fungi (except those de - species pages. fined from sequence data) include information from Index Fungorum and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Goal 4: Identify mechanisms for the future involve - Resources available for many fungi include GBIF data, ment of the world’s mycological community. Barcode of Life and/or GenBank data, Plant Host Index Goal 5: Identify mechanisms for EoL to communicate data, images, and a wealth of others. its activities to the world’s mycologists and enable Many fungal species pages already exist, for ex - feedback. ample, Tom Volk’s beautiful “Fungus of the Month” Continued on following page 2 Inoculum 60(1), February 2009 pages and the pages on the “Mushrooms and Fungi of EoL become a global effort. Why would mycologists Poland”. In a very short time the group came up with want to participate? The EoL is needed as a common many other resources, e.g. pages on Trichomycetes and source for information about every fungal species and the Xylariaceae. is also a way to advertise fungi to the world. Serving as However, many of these pages exist as flat HTML an editor of EoL species pages will provide great cred - files and, apparently, information from HTML files is it to the persons involved, and access to EoL software not easily extracted by EoL. The group recommended may enable persons to organize and present fungal data that EoL create tools to facilitate the translation of this to the global community. content into EoL. To learn more about curation or the “LifeDesk” software that will be public as of January 2010 and will The Audience enable the building of species pages, see “Participating The group discussed whether there is a priority au - in the Encyclopedia of Life”. dience for EoL and concluded that EoL will be a re - source for multiple audiences. Pages may become very Persons Present at the August 14, 2008 detailed, but each page can be adjusted by the user so Group Discussion at State College, PA : that more or less information is visible. The core re - Thomas Bruns ( [email protected] ) quirements of a page for the general audience should be Paul Cannon ( [email protected] ) a 200 word description and an image. David Geiser ( [email protected] ) What to Build Now? David Hibbett ( [email protected] ) Different mycologists will care more or less about Kathie Hodge ( [email protected] ) different parts of the world and different groups of fungi. Three kinds of pages could be created: exemplar Sabine Huhndorf ( [email protected] ) pages focused on diversity across the fungal tree of life, Paul Kirk ( [email protected] ) pages focused on a single region, or pages focused on a David Maddison ( [email protected] ) target genus. It seems best to let the community be op - Nicholas Money ( [email protected] ) portunistic and allow EoL to track the enthusiasm and activity of different groups of citizens and scientists. Greg Mueller ( [email protected] ) Data submission will be facilitated by software Cynthia Parr ( [email protected] ) created by EoL and available as of January 2009. This David Patterson ( [email protected] ) “LifeDesk” software will allow anyone to submit con - Donald Pfister ( [email protected] ) tent, and the goal is to make data submission as easy as possible. Anne Pringle ( [email protected] ) In addition, a template that can be used by stu - Amy Rossman ( [email protected] ) dents to create species pages is under development at Keith Seifert ( [email protected] ) Berkeley, Harvard, the University of Oregon and the Joseph Spatafora ( [email protected] ) University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse. This template will be distributed broadly starting in early 2010 and should Joost Stalpers ( [email protected] ) provide an exciting new educational tool for teachers at Rod Tulloss ( [email protected] ) the secondary and tertiary levels.