Fungi are staggeringly diverse with anywhere from 1-10 million species estimated worldwide. However, only a fraction has been formally described. The Inocybaceae is a family of mushroom-forming fungi estimated to contain some 300 species in North America, but many of these have not been revised in decades, most are known from very few collections, and species are difficult to identify based on morphology alone. The Inocybaceae is important because its species form plant root mutualisms with trees like pines and oaks in forested and urban settings, and many species are toxic to humans and pets. This award will fund research to revise and synthesize the Inocybaceae from North America, thus enabling a better understanding of its diversity and provide resources for identification of species and more inclusive taxa. Support will be provided to train graduate students, undergraduates, and citizen scientists in the field of systematics and taxonomy, which aims to understand how organisms have diversified over time and their identification and classification. This research will also improve natural history collections in the United States and enable the Inocybaceae to become a model group for future studies in other research areas of biology.
Researchers in this project will produce a modern systematic revision of the Inocybaceae based on evolutionary theory. Individual species will be revised based on input from natural history collections in museums and herbaria augmented by fresh samples from the field and environmental DNA. Numerous type specimens will be molecularly annotated to affirm their taxonomic status and relationship to extant collections. This will result in the first monograph of the family in 100 years, aid modern floristic treatments by region in North America, and result in description of many novel species. Measures of functional diversity will be made across the Inocybaceae and its sister group, the Crepidotaceae, using stable isotope data of nitrogen and carbon to evaluate the timing and number of shifts to the mycorrhizal habit. Several hypotheses regarding macroevolution and macroecology will be assessed. These entail a putative increase in diversification in temperate descendants of tropical ancestors and adaptive or functional links between certain morphological features and biogeographical traits.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
