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Mycological herbaria act as
repositories for fungal specimens. These specimens are then
made available to professional mycologists for study. Students
or private citizens are often allowed access to herbaria in order to study
the specimens that are housed
there. Specimens act as models that can be used by the student
to familiarize themselves with fungal species and genera or by the
professional to form taxonomic concepts. Special specimens
called 'types' serves as a basis for mycologists to form and
communicate species concepts. These type specimens serve to
ground the concept in reality, thus allowing other researchers
to examine the actual specimen that a species was based on in order
to form their own opinions. In order to validly publish a new
species name, the rules that govern the naming fungal taxa (the
International Code of Botanical Nomeclature) requires that a
type specimen representing the new species be housed in an institutional herbarium.
Besides serving as
objects of study, herbarium specimens can act as vouchers that
validate scientific studies (e.g., biodiversity surveys) or they can
be used to form catalogues of species to assist in the creation of
local, state-wide, regional, or national fungal floras. After
a brief period where some believed herbaria were obsolete, the
herbarium has garnered new respect. This renewal came about as
modern scientists realized that herbaria also act as repositories of
genetic information. It is not uncommon these days for
researchers to remove a small portion of a specimen in order to
extract DNA for studies related to genetics or evolution. With
the advance of computing power, modern herbaria often enter
specimens and the information related to them into databases.
These databases are then made available via the World Wide Web
to assist mycologists in searching for specimens or to provide raw data
for researchers working in bioinformatics.
Herbaria are managed by
curators who are charged with preparing newly acquired specimens,
caring for specimens already housed in the collection, overseeing
efforts to database specimens, managing transactions such as loans,
and serving as educators with a specialized knowledge of the
collection and the organisms on which the collection is based.
Herbaria collections are often specialized themselves, with
specimens originating from a specific country or a certain region.
In Arizona, two major fungal collections exist. The University of
Arizona's
Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium (over 40,000
accessioned specimens) focuses on macrofungi from Arizona and the
American Southwest and polypores from various regions in the United States,
including Hawaii and Alaska. Arizona State University's
Lichen
Herbarium (over 109,000 accessioned specimens) specializes in
lichenized fungi from the Sonoran desert region, the Lecanorae and
Xanthoparmeliae from around the world, and the Parmeliaceae of Latin
America.
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Herbaria Housing Specimens
of Arizona Macrofungi
New York Botanical Garden (NY)
Oregon State University Herbarium (OSC)
University
of Arizona R.L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium (ARIZ)
University of Michigan Fungus Collection (MICH)
University
of Tennessee Herbarium (TENN)
U.S. National Fungus Collections (BPI)
Other Herbaria Related Links
Arizona
State University Lichen Herbarium (ASU)
Arizona State
University Natural History Collections
Arizona State University Vascular Plant Herbarium (ASU)
HUH Index of Botanical Publications
Index Fungorum
Index Herbariorum
University of Arizona Vascular Plant Herbarium
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