The power of citizen science to advance fungal conservation

Author: mycolabadmin
3/22/2024
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Summary

Fungi are incredibly diverse organisms with important ecological roles, but most remain poorly studied and unprotected. Citizen science projects, which engage the general public in scientific research, are proving to be powerful tools for collecting fungal data across large geographic areas and long time periods. By training volunteers to identify and document fungi, projects on platforms like iNaturalist have gathered millions of observations that help scientists understand where fungi live, how common they are, and which species need protection.

Background

Fungal conservation is gaining global momentum, but significant challenges remain due to fungi’s cryptic nature, complex taxonomy, and immense diversity. Only approximately 154,000 of an estimated 2.5 million fungal species have been described, creating a substantial knowledge shortfall that impedes conservation efforts. Citizen science projects offer a promising approach to overcome these challenges by leveraging public engagement to collect fungal diversity data across spatial and temporal scales.

Objective

This review explores how citizen science projects can be leveraged to advance fungal conservation efforts by examining past and ongoing CS-based initiatives. The authors present examples of different project types, discuss challenges to effective CS implementation in mycology, and provide a framework to help professional mycologists determine whether their projects would benefit from citizen science participation.

Results

Citizen science has generated substantial fungal occurrence data, with iNaturalist alone recording over 8.7 million fungal observations representing 20,096 species as of June 2023. Examples include the Danish Fungal Atlas with 1.1 million expert-validated records, the Mushroom of Kenya project documenting 424 species, and the Great North American Fungi Quest recording 157,701 observations in 2022. These projects have contributed to species discovery, Red List assessments, and conservation planning.

Conclusion

Citizen science is a powerful tool for advancing fungal conservation by providing large-scale biodiversity data that would be difficult for professional mycologists alone to collect. Key to maximizing this potential are addressing challenges related to taxonomic bias, species identification accuracy, data curation, and ensuring diverse participation. Professional mycologists should actively engage with amateur naturalists and local communities through well-designed projects that leverage appropriate CS participation levels.

Published in:Conservation Letters,
Study Type:Review,
Source: PMID: 39371387, DOI: 10.1111/conl.13013