An Inventory of Fungal Diversity in Ohio
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Date
2021-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Fungi are a large and diverse group of eukaryotic organisms that play important roles in nutrient cycling in ecosystems worldwide. Fungi are poorly documented compared to plants in Ohio despite 197 years of collecting activity, and an attempt to compile all the species of fungi known from Ohio has not been completed since 1894. This paper compiles the species of fungi currently known from Ohio based on vouchered fungal collections available in digitized form at the Mycology Collections Portal (MyCoPortal) and other online collections databases and new collections by the author. All groups of fungi are treated, including lichens and microfungi. 69,795 total records of Ohio fungi were processed, resulting in a list of 4,865 total species-level taxa. 250 of these taxa are newly reported from Ohio in this work. 229 of the taxa known from Ohio are species that were originally described from Ohio. A number of potentially novel fungal species were discovered over the course of this study and will be described in future publications. The insights gained from this work will be useful in facilitating future research on Ohio fungi, developing more comprehensive and modern guides to Ohio fungi, and beginning to investigate the possibility of fungal conservation in Ohio.
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Keywords
Fungi, database, checklist, taxonomy, Ohio, biodiversity