Press Releases
01 July 2005
Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne Puts Fungi on the map
The launch of a new fungi field guide will help provide scientists and community natural history groups with much needed insight into how fungi are faring environmentally.
It will also provide scientists with the information they need to be able to conserve and protect fungi.
Fungi Down Under is a richly illustrated guide to some of Australia’s fascinating and exquisitely beautiful larger fungi. Where else can a reader find a guide to Green Skinheads, Pixie’s Parasols, Beefsteak Fungus and a Bunyip Egg?
According to Prof. Jim Ross, RBG Divisional Director, Plant Sciences and Biodiversity, the field guide provides an exacting baseline from which current and future fungi spotters can work.
Data from Fungimap has already been used to support the nomination of the rare Tea Tree Fingers as the first fungus to be listed under Victoria’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.
The detailed maps in Fungi Down Under are a first for an Australian fungus book.
More than 80 people contributed text and images to the book, all in a voluntary capacity, including authors Ed and Pat Grey and editor Leon Costermans. It marks a successful collaboration between scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne and community natural history groups.
Over the last ten years the fungi mapping scheme has been sponsored by Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne and the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. RBG Melbourne hosts the Fungimap office and provided financial support for publishing Fungi Down Under.
Royal Botanic Gardens Senior Mycologist Dr Tom May is the founding President of Fungimap, a new national community group dedicated to improving knowledge about Australian fungi and ensuring their conservation.
Dr May said “Now that the first 100 species have been mapped, we can look forward to mapping the many thousands of other fungi that we know are out there in the forests, all with vital roles in ecosystem functioning’.
Media inquiries: Penny Underwood on (03) 9818 8540.
Fungi Down Under
ISBN 0-646-44674-6 Paperback, 146 pp, 8 x 210 x 148 mm RRP $29.95
Published by Fungimap, c/o Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Private Bag 2000, South Yarra, 3141
fungimap@rbg,.vic,gov,.au
Available from Fungimap (order form at http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/research_and_conservation/fungimap/fungi_down_under) and the Gardens Shop, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
Background information
The FUNGIMAP scheme
The Fungimap scheme is a mapping scheme for 100 selected Australian fungi.
Its aim is to bring together people interested in fungi, both amateurs and scientists, so as to rapidly improve knowledge of the distribution and ecology of Australian fungi.
Interest in fungi is mushrooming and more than 600 people across Australia now receive the Fungimap Newsletter, and more than 20,000 records of fungi have been submitted.
Local fungal studies groups have sprung up in several states, and Fungimap is playing an increasing role in linking people and providing resources, such as regular newsletters, a website and CD-ROM guide to the target species, which was winner of a National CommunityLink award in the environment, conservation and heritage category for Victoria in 2001. Fungi Down Under, a field guide to the target species has recently been published.
FUNGIMAP became incorporated in 2005. Support for the Fungimap office is provided by Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
How FUNGIMAP works
There are maps and atlases for the distribution of Australian birds, frogs, plants and mammals. However, knowledge about Australian fungi is very patchy, with more unknown than known species. Even for the named species, knowledge about their distribution in Australia is fairly limited.
There are only a small number of mycologists employed in Australia, so non-experts are needed to help map the distribution of 100 readily recognisable fungi.
The accurate identification of a great many fungal species relies on microscopic examination of specimens. However, there are also species that are distinctive enough to be accurately identifiable by the naked eye, by a non-expert, if a good picture is handy.
Most of the target species have turned out to be relatively common. One big surprise is that many of the target species are very widely distributed (some fungi occur in south west WA and also along much of the length of the east coast of Australia).
The FUNGIMAP scheme has also confirmed the rarity of some of the targets. Some very interesting new locations for fungi have been discovered, and many gaps in distribution have been filled.
The Fungimap website is at http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/research_and_conservation/fungimap/welcome
What are the target species?
A set of 100 target species have been selected that cover different distribution patterns.
Target species include fungi of great beauty of form and colour, and also bizarre fungi like the Anemone Fungus (Aseroe rubra) whose stinking spore mass attracts flies. Target species include mushrooms, coral fungi, stinkhorns, bracket fungi, and earthstars.
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