The power of citizen science to advance fungal conservation

Author: mycolabadmin
3/22/2024
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Summary

This paper shows how regular people can help scientists understand and protect fungi by submitting observations to online platforms like iNaturalist. Scientists have collected millions of fungal observations from amateur naturalists worldwide, which helps identify rare species, understand where fungi are found, and decide which species need protection. The authors explain both the successes of these citizen science projects and the challenges that need to be overcome to make them even more effective for fungal conservation.

Background

Fungal conservation is gaining global momentum, but significant challenges remain due to fungi’s immense diversity, complex taxonomy, and cryptic nature. Approximately 2.5 million fungal species are estimated to exist, yet only about 154,000 have been described, creating a major knowledge gap that impedes conservation efforts. Citizen science presents a promising approach to address these challenges by leveraging public participation and amateur naturalists to generate large-scale biodiversity data.

Objective

This paper explores how citizen science projects can be leveraged to advance fungal conservation efforts, presenting examples of past and ongoing CS-based initiatives and examining challenges to capturing fungal diversity, estimating species absences, broadening participation, and translating data into actionable conservation measures. The authors also provide a framework to help professional mycologists determine whether their projects would benefit from citizen science participation.

Results

As of June 2023, iNaturalist has recorded 8.7 million fungal observations from 651,795 contributors representing 20,096 species, while Mushroom Observer has 480,069 observations from 11,641 contributors. Notable projects include the Danish Fungal Atlas with 1.1 million expert-validated records, the Great North American Fungi Quest with 157,701 observations in 2022, and the MIND.Funga App with over 17,000 images. These projects have contributed to species discoveries, Red List assessments, and conservation planning.

Conclusion

Citizen science has demonstrated significant power in advancing fungal conservation by generating large-scale biodiversity data across geographic regions and time periods. Addressing challenges related to taxonomic bias, data quality, participant diversity, and translating observations into conservation action requires collaboration between professional mycologists and citizen scientists, proper infrastructure, and continued commitment to democratizing mycological research.

Published in:Conservation Letters,
Study Type:Review,
Source: 10.1111/conl.13013