The National Collection of Fungi : Past, Present and Future

The National Collection of Fungi :

Past, Present and Future

Riana Jacobs

Curator: National Collection of Fungi

Grace Kwinda

Co-ordinator: PPRI living Fungal collection

Agricultural Research Council

Biosystematics Division

Mycology Unit

[email protected] © Agricultural Research Council

Brief history of the National

Collection of Fungi

© Agricultural Research Council

Brief history of the collection

• IB Pole-Evans (1905 - 1939) first Plant Pathologist in SA with mandate to study plant diseases and fungicides

• Started the Botanical Herbarium in 1905 at Vredehuis at the foot of the Union Buildings

• By 1913: 9000 specimens

• 2009 Move to new facilities at Roodeplaat

• Review Rong and Baxter, 2010 Studies in Mycology 55:1 for the history of the National Collections of Fungi

IB Pole Evans Vredehuis, at the foot of

the Union Buildings

New premises at

Roodeplaat (ARC-PPRI

west)


• Ethel Doidge (1947) (Plant Pathogens)

• Edith Stephens (Macro fungi)

– Bolus Herbarium

• Van der Bijl (Macro fungi)

– University of Stellenbosch

• Timer Research Laboratory

• South African Museum

• Van der Walt collection

Major contributions


Current status


National Collection of Fungi

PREM (currently)

• 61 285 specimens

• 12 841 number of species

• ca. 2300 type specimens presenting species

• South African and foreign specimens

• Material from all 6 continents

• Loan requests: All from international researchers

• Deposits: All type material (voucher specimens)


• 23 000 isolates

• Reserved vs. public

– Budapest Treaty

– CBD (Nagoya protocol)

• SASFUN contributed 12% of specimen holdings

National Collection of Fungi

PPRI (currently)


Milestones

PREM

(Dried herbarium Collection)

Successful digitized the PREM collection

Framework has been completed

Checking errors

Revising static tables

Revision of all protocols as well as destructive sampling

protocol

List of PREM types provided to NCBI GenBank

Specimens checked

Literature database and scanned literature (Darwin

Initiative)


Milestones PPRI

(Living Collection)

– SASFUN

– DNA Barcodes generated

• Biosystematics BioBank

– MRC PROMEC collection reallocation

– 100-800 cultures per month

• Funding:

– Three rounds of successful SABIF funding

– NRF FBIP

– NRF SA-China bilateral funding


Collaborations


Current collaborations/projects

• NRF Thutuka: Grassland

• FBIP: DNA Barcoding and taxonomic revision

• NRF SA China Bilateral: Macro fungi

• Oppenheimer and Son: Fusarium Survey

• University of the Free State: Macro fungi

• University of Johannesburg: Fusarium and Karoo Surveys

• Stellenbosch University: Fynbos

• University of Pretoria: Succulent Karoo

• The Royal Botanic gardens and Domain trust, Sydney: Fusarium Survey

• SANBI: Karoo Survey

• External:

• Medicinal Plant Survey: North West University

• Rooibos and Honeybush Surveys: Stellenbosch University

• Arid Fusarium survey: Free State University

Objectives of the SA-China bilateral project:

• Fungal soil diversity

• Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

– Limpopo Survey

• Agricultural Research Council

• University of Stellenbosch

• Free State University

– 12 genera:

– 5 Provinces

– 4 Crops

• Capacity building:

• 2 PhD student (Stellenbosch University)

• 2 MSc (University of Johannesburg; Stellenbosch University)

• 1 BSc Hons (University of Johannesburg)

• 3 BTech students (Tshwane University of Technology; Cape University of

Technology)


Mycology Portals

Populating portals (Collaboration with Prof Pedro Crous, Westerdijk

Fungal Diversity Centre, The Netherlands)

Soil and phytopathogenic fungi

o Capturing of NCF data

o Clean and verification of NCF data

o Crous 2002 list

o Add DNA Barcodes

o Add new accessions

o Add reports from literature 2002-2014

o Geo-referencing historical localities

o Taxonomic changes- One fungus one name

o Isolates not reported in literature but accessioned in NCF

Capturing of

data

Verification of

data

Design of

portals

Populating portals with

verified data



DNA Barcoding of the National

Collection of Fungi

DNA barcoding • One gene region per isolate

• ITS

• Other gene regions

• Ca. 400 voucher specimens have been accessioned in PREM

• Biodiversity:

• Fungi isolated from mesemb seed from Namaqua National Park

• Fungal endophytes isolated from Aizoaceae in the Succulent Karoo

biodiversity hotspot during the dry and flowering seasons

• Fusarium grassland biome project – Indigenous grasses

– Soil

• Fungi isolated from the Karst ecosystem

• Agriculture:

• Alternaria and Fusarium isolates from vegetable crops

• Collections based:

• Isolates not identified to species level

• Fusarium, Trichoderma, Aspergillus and Penicillium

Take home message

• The National Collection of

Fungi is a national asset to be

used

• WFCC affiliated

• Adhere to the CBD, Nagoya

and Budapest treaties

• Preservation and

documentation of South

African Fungal diversity is vital

• Collaboration is essential


The current collections team

Annah Thabang Thando

Pinkie


Permanent staff members

Grace

Permanent staff members-on a part time basis NRF Interns on part time basis

Melva Gudani

Undergraduate and post graduate students

Mo Mudzuli

Database team

Edward

Luther Rebecca

Jeanet

Munro

Peter

Pretunia

Andi Noma

Marcus


Acknowledgements

Funders and collaborators


Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Confucius

Thank you

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Documents

The National Collection of Fungi : Past, Present and Future