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If you like the thrill of the mushroom hunt, want to learn more about the fantastic world of fungi,
and want to help protect them, you’re in the right place.

Are you ready to get started creating observations that will be valuable to science? 

Our Programs

DIVERSITY DATABASE

The Diversity Database builds critical knowledge about seasonality, distribution, and abundance of fungi and trains community scientists in how to scientifically document fungi. Everyone can contribute high quality observations to the FunDiS Diversity Databse on iNaturalist or Mushroom Observer. Help us turn hundreds of thousands of observations posted on these platforms into vetted databases that will be useful to scientists studying fungal diversity, the effects of climate change, and other impacts on distribution. Are you an experienced identifier who can provide feedback to database contributors about how to improve observation quality? The iNat database is up and running, and an MO counterpart is under development.
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RARE FUNGI CHALLENGES

Rare Fungi Challenges document rare and threatened fungi in various regions of North America. Our pilot challenge, the West Coast Rare 10 Challenge, began in October 2020, and collected mushrooms from Alaska to California. The West Coast Challenge will continue, with 10 additional species, and a second Rare Fungi Challenge will be launched in summer 2021 in the Northeast (from Quebec to Pennsylvania) featuring 20 species. The Conservation Working Group crowdsources discovery of threatened fungi and fungi in critical and endangered habitats.
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COMMUNITY SCIENCE PROJECTS 

You can help document fungal diversity by joining or starting a FunDiS project. You can register a project and post observations online using our protocols. You can contribute at whatever level suits you best, and advance at your own pace if you want to do more. Our grant funds for sequencing have run out but you can still add observations.
Start here.

Join thousands of community scientists across North America. You’ll contribute to what we (amateurs at all levels and academic mycologists alike) know about the wonderful Kingdom Fungi. You’ll learn some fascinating perspectives about fungi and their role in ecosystems. You’ll see some crazy beautiful fungi - and likely some life forms you never thought were fungi. And you’ll know your contributions to fungal science are important.