Cryptogamic facility for molecules, morphology, and natural product chemistry

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A new facility to study fungal and lichen systematics is proposed. This facility will be novel because it will retain the classification aspect of traditional herbaria but eliminate duplicate specimens (except type specimens and rare species) so that excessive growth beyond the capacity of the space provided will be prevented. The facility will include a temperature controlled incubator for fungal cultures that, when mature, will be dried in an adjacent oven, and stored in metal herbarium cabinets.  Microscopes will be available for the users of the facility and a digital camera will be used to store and manipulate images of fungi and lichens on a PC computer. These images will serve as research vouchers for species that are difficult to culture and maintain, and they will be highly valuable for HQP training of groups of fungi and lichens that are rarely observed in nature. This will also provide reliable access for the scientific community to find information on hard-to-culture organisms and associated data. Studies of fungal and lichen biodiversity, using inventories of species, variation in genes and secondary metabolites, mobile elements, and gene regulation, are essential for understanding ecosystems from the molecule to morphology. Appropriate storage of these specimens will preserve the morphological features for taxonomy, and the DNA and secondary compounds for studying population and evolutionary variation. Other studies using the well preserved specimens may lead to an understanding of the movement of mobile elements and the spread of plant disease, or gene regulation in medicinally and ecologically important secondary compounds.