An award to Pennsylvania State University is made to support a workshop to discuss and develop a community plan for a DNA sequence-based classification of fungi. A large proportion of fungal diversity is only known from DNA sequence fragments, but these taxa cannot be incorporated within current classification systems because their scientific names are not associated with a physical specimen. This workshop will consider the various technical, analytical and taxonomic/nomenclatural challenges and opportunities for implementing a DNA sequence-based taxonomy of fungi.
The workshop will be two days in length and will include a total 40 participants. Participants will include researchers from diverse career stages and types of institution, with at least ten students and post-doctoral researchers, including members from under-represented groups, expected to participate. Workshop management will be handled by a steering committee of six individuals including three women, two faculty from Principally Undergraduate Institutions, and two people from under-represented groups. The workshop will result in: 1) a broadly distributed meeting report, 2) a position paper to be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and 3) a proposal to modify the International Code for Algae, Fungi and Plants to allow sequence-based classification of fungi. Recommendations from this workshop will not only provide a framework for the classification of fungi using DNA sequence data, but will also serve as a model for the classification of other taxa known only from DNA sequences such as microbes.
