We provide a number of opportunities to have your specimens sequenced at no charge. These sequences are funded by the proceeds generated by the paid sequencing service.
Eastern North American species with no representative ITS sequence in GenBank
Any collection of macrofungi from eastern NA you can put a reasonable name to that DOES NOT HAVE a representative North American ITS sequence in GenBank. These specimens must have a reasonable attempt at an identification to species with your justification of the name being applied in MO/iNat notes.
Eastern North American Lepiotoids
Well documented specimens of Lepiotoids (Lepiota, Leucoagaricus, Leucocoprinus, Cystolepiota, Echinoderma) from eastern North America. Excluding Macrolepiota and common species (L. americanus, L. cristata sl.).
Cystoagaricus from North America
Any collections from this genus from North America.
Specimens from Indiana, USA
Any collections from the state of Indiana.
- How do I find out if a specimen is in GenBank?
Genbank is the public repository for DNA sequence data. You can search it using the example at the following link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=amanita+flavoconia+internal
Including “internal” at the end of your search will limit results to the DNA region of interest. If a species you collect does not have a sequence of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) then we would accept your specimen and sequence it for free. - What about species for which only European collections are represented in GenBank?
We will sequence collections that lack reference data from North America. - Why do I need to upload to Mushroom Observer (MO) or iNaturalist (iNat)?
These observational portals allow all of the metadata to be organized for quick processing by our lab. The most important information includes the collection date, the collection location, and color photographs.