Bolete Mushrooms Surveys and Revisions

Roy Halling

This project supports basic field exploration to study the bolete mushrooms (porcini in the broad sense) from Queensland, Australia—an area predicted to have high diversity. Boletes produce mushrooms highly prized by humans and animals for food and function as obligate mycorrhizal root symbionts where they are the largest contributor to forest ecosystem health. Fundamental knowledge of fungal diversity is essential for any applied research on forest ecosystems. The investigators will produce baseline data on Australian boletes via international collaboration and the training of several students. The project will also produce a definitive phylogenetic classification supported by modern methods, and will construct online resources for identifications, comparisons, and documentation. The work outlined in this proposal will provide a first biodiversity inventory of this group of macrofungi for Queensland, Australia, a region known to encompass three of Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspots as well as World Heritage listed sites. Data gathered from this survey will prove valuable for understanding the systematics, biogeography, and ecology of macrofungi and will provide important information for understanding the formation, maintenance and conservation of a portion of Australia’s unique forest communities that largely exist on nutrient poor, impoverished soils.

More information: Boletinae: Surveys and Revisions