The fungi are an ecologically important group of organisms that directly impact human health and the health of our ecosystems and agriculture, through a wide range of mutualistic and parasitic interactions. However, fungi are difficult to identify and enumerate in ecological settings, and this problem has limited our ability to study their ecological interactions. The primary objective of the Fungal Environmental Sampling and Informatics Network (FESIN) is to facilitate the study of fungi in environmental settings by improving identification tools and resources available to scientists who are not trained in fungal taxonomy. FESIN will achieve that objective through a series of meetings that focus on coordinating the development of molecular identification tools and databases for fungi.
The tools and database resources that will be developed through FESIN will provide rapid identification methods for fungal pathogens and mutualists and will help scientists to dissect the functioning of complex ecosystems. FESIN is structured also to facilitate the training of young scientists and to develop long-term interactions between the disciplines of ecology and fungal biology. In addition, FESIN will facilitate public outreach at multiple levels in order to improve public understanding of critical environmental roles of fungi.
(FESIN) was to connect fungal ecology with the cutting edge of new molecular and analytical methods and to expand the field into the mainstream of community ecology. To do this we needed to educate fungal ecologists on the best approaches in this rapidly changing field, and we needed to make it easier for non-fungal biologists to include fungi in their studies. In addition we wanted involve "citizen scientists" in fungal ecology. We hosted the following six meetings that targeted key issues related to these goals. 2007 Database and Methodological Issues with DNA identification methods in fungi. With UNITE in Copenhagen www.bio.utk.edu/fesin/Copenhagen/copenhagen_meeting.htm 2008 Molecular Tools for Assessing Fungal Biodiverity, with Ecological Society of America in Milwaukee Wi. www.bio.utk.edu/fesin/FESIN2008/ESA2008.htm 2009 New Methods for Community Analyzes with Botanical Society of America and Mycological Society of America in Snowbird Ut. www.bio.utk.edu/fesin/MSA2009/workshop.htm 2010 Developing methods for analyses of Next Generation Sequencing data in fungi. With NORDFORSK research Network in Edinburgh Scotland, www.bio.utk.edu/fesin/FESIN2010/program.htm 2011 Education and outreach in Fungal Biology, Fairbanks Al, with MSA www.bio.utk.edu/fesin/FESIN2011/Fesin2011_workshop.htm 2012 North American Mycoflora project, New Haven Ct. with Mycological Society of America www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOyuQaVrp4qrweAIKZRhJjlPFj2gbYJgY&feature=view_all The 2007 meeting helped lay out the agenda for the following years, resulted in a letter to Science (2008 319:1616) about the problems with public sequence databases, and lead to an improved version of the UNITE sequence database. The next three meetings dealt with newly developed molecular methods and the patterns they revealed (2008), newly developed statistical analyses and software (2009), and development of software pipelines for processing of Next Generation fungal sequences (2010). Because they occurred just prior to national or international scientific meetings and at the same sites at these meetings they were well attended (90-140 people), particularly by the youngest and most active portion of the field. Collectively these meetings transformed the field of fungal ecology by making researchers aware of the cutting edge of technology, and by spawning a host of collaborative interactions. The 2011 meeting was targeted at improving the teaching of fungal biology, and in the day and half workshop 31 participants were involved in lectures, hands on workshops, and assignments, and were given syllabi and other resources from currently taught courses on fungal biology. The participants were graduate students, postdoctoral associates, or untenured faculty and they all found the workshop to be highly valuable. The last formal meeting was geared toward starting a comprehensive catalogue and identification resource for mushrooms in North America. This meeting was unique in that it included citizen scientists as well as professional fungal biologists. This meeting spawned a lot of interest especially among citizen scientists. The presentations are posted on Youtube (see link above), and the project website that resulted from the meeting is here: www.northamericanmycoflora.org/presentations.html In the final two years of FESIN we spearheaded an effort to expand and improve fungal content in Wikipedia. This resulted in the 51 new or greatly expanded sites within Wikipedia, and it involved 42 graduate students and postdoctoral associates who authored these pages. This is a lasting form of outreach because these page are now open to the public for addition editing and updating. In addition the impact of this project will continue to grow as many of the student/postdoc authors continue to contribute throughout their careers to this universal portal of public information. In addition to the text and links given above the following publications provide additional details about individual meetings: Kennedy, P. and T. Bruns. 2007. Mycorrhizas take root at the Ecological Society of America. New Phytol. 176(4): p. 745-748. Horton, T.R., Arnold, A.E., and Bruns, T. D. 2009. FESIN workshops at ESA - The mycelial network grows. Mycorrhiza 19:283-285. Bruns, T.D., A.E. Arnold, and K.W. Hughes. 2008. Fungal networks made of humans: UNITE, FESIN, and frontiers in fungal ecology. New Phytol. 177(3): p. 586-588. Parrent, J.L., Peay, K ., Arnold, A.E., Comas, L.H., Avis, P., and A. Tuininga. 2010. Moving from pattern to process in fungal symbioses: linking functional traits, community ecology and phylogenetics. New Phytol. 185: 882-886 Bruns, TD and Beug, M. W. 2012. Working toward a North American Mycoflora for Macrofungi. McIlvainea (on line journal of American Amateur Mycology) http://namyco.org/publications/mcilvainea/v21/Toward_NA_Mycoflora.html Bruns, TD 2012. The North American Mycoflora project–the first steps on a long journey. New Phytol. 196 (4), 972-974
