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Short Abstract

Despite being essential for our ecosystems, fungi are often neglected in nature conservation and monitoring. By engaging 400 citizen scientists from 29 European countries in coordinated campaigns, we collated 3089 occurrence records of rare fungal taxa across the continent, majority as specimens.

Abstract

Fungi are essential for our ecosystems but are often neglected in nature conservation and monitoring. Even in Europe, where research on fungal diversity has been ongoing for centuries, the distribution of many species remains unknown, restricting effective conservation practices inclusive to fungi. In FunDive, a collaborative project funded by Biodiversa+, we aim to raise awareness about fungi as crucial components of ecosystems and to engage people in fungal conservation by coordinating efforts of hundreds of citizen scientists with 42 research partners across 29 countries. Through targeted collaborative sampling campaigns with citizen scientists from local mycological groups and societies, the development of tools for data integration and publication to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and the provision of broad access to DNA barcoding, we recorded 3089 fungal (mostly macromycetes and lichens) occurrences (251 observations, 2810 specimens) from 29 countries and generated 886 ITS sequences during our first sampling season. Preliminary analysis of sequence data has already uncovered fungal species new to science and new records for several countries. These recorded occurrences will greatly increase our knowledge of the distribution of rare species in Europe. If you are interested in joining our efforts, please visit our webpage: https://fun-dive.eu/en/get-involved/. We believe that this collaborative endeavor will improve our knowledge of pan-European fungal diversity and distribution patterns, which is crucial for understanding macroecological processes and will help with data-driven European Red Listing decisions.