Citizen science helps in the study of fungal diversity in New Jersey

Abstract

The history of fungal diversity of the Northeastern United States is currently fragmentary and restricted to particular functional groups or limited geospatial scales. Here, we describe a unique by its size, lifespan and data originators dataset, to improve our understanding of species occurrence and distribution across the state and time. Between the years 2007 to 2019, over 30 parks and nature preserves were sampled during forays conducted by members of the New Jersey Mycological Association (USA), a nonprofit organization of fungi enthusiasts. The dataset contains over 400 000 occurrences of over 1400 species across the state, made up mostly of the phylum Basidiomycota (89%) and Ascomycota (11%), with most observations resolved at the species level (>99%). The database is georeferenced and openly accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) repository. This dataset marks a productive endeavor to contribute to our knowledge of the biodiversity of fungi in the Northeastern United States leveraging citizen science to better resolve biodiversity of this critical and understudied kingdom.