Fungal Diversity Survey is a community science project. We aim to empower amateur mushroom enthusiasts, working with professionals, to document the diversity and distribution of fungi across North America. 

Community science is also called citizen science and public participation in scientific research. We use community because many amateur scientists see themselves as part of a growing community, and because we want to avoid confusion with the citizenship status of volunteers.

“In citizen science, the public participates voluntarily in the scientific process, addressing real-world problems in ways that may include formulating research questions, conducting scientific experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting results, making new discoveries, developing technologies and applications, and solving complex problems. In crowdsourcing, organizations submit an open call for voluntary assistance from a large group of individuals for online, distributed problem solving.” CitizenScience.gov  

“Smartphones, computers and mobile technology are enabling regular citizens to become part of a 21st century way of doing science. By observing their environments, monitoring neighborhoods, collecting information about the world and the things they care about, so-called “citizen scientists” are helping professional scientists to advance knowledge while speeding up new discoveries and innovations.”  The Crowd and the Cloud 

Resources

• Community science overview
   
  • The Crowd and the Cloud [website] - an exciting sampling of community science projects (PBS and Amazon Prime; four episodes)
    
    
• Community science for fungi
   
  • A four-tiered model for crowdsourcing fungal biodiversity citizen science. [blog post]
    • Bill Sheehan. 2020. Deep Funga blog.
      
      
  • In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms. [book & audiobook]
    • Doug Bierend. 2021. Chelsea Green Publishing.  [section on FunDiS near the end of Chapter 4]
       
  • How citizen science boosted primary knowledge on fungal biodiversity in Denmark.  [pdf]
    
    • Heilmann-Clausen, Jacob, et al. 2019. Biological Conservation 237: 366-372.