It’s the first of a series of challenges. Details here.
What we do
We equip citizen and professional scientists with the tools to document the diversity and distribution of fungi across North America.Why we do it
To increase awareness of the critical role of fungi in the health of our ecosystems and allow us to better protect them in a world of rapid climate change and habitat loss.Who we’re for
We aim to engage all levels of mushroom lovers who want to contribute basic knowledge about fungal diversity and distribution.
Why Fungal Diversity Survey?
The word Mycoflora in our name had become a challenge. “Flora” is a term from botany - the study of plants. Fungi are their own kingdom - but as long as they get lumped in with plants they will not get the recognition, attention and protection they deserve. As an organization championing the special place of fungi in the world we needed to stand up for them - starting with our name.
We’ve expanded our mission. Our focus used to be just sequencing and vouchering - rest assured, this has not changed. But there’s a greater opportunity out there. More people are sharing observations of fungi on citizen science platforms than ever before, but not all of them are of sufficient quality to be useful to scientists and conservationists. We’ve made it our goal to increase the number of high quality, identified observations of fungi in North America by training observers and providing identification.
Find out more here.
Deep Funga Blog
A citizen scientist’s journey: the second year
- 29 October 2020As a keen citizen scientist I try to strike a balance between going out into the field, finding interesting mushrooms to sequence, and doing the work to document and preserve my finds for the...
Join our West Coast Rare 10 Challenge and help us document rare and threatened fungi
- 15 October 2020Like so many other organisms, fungi, along with their often fragile and threatened habitats, need our protection.
Drawing during COVID times maintains mental health
- 06 October 2020On the 14th of March I began serious social distancing due to COVID-19 and on the 23rd the State of Oregon locked down. I had been wanting to start a practice of doing a sketch or painting every...
