Fungal Diversity Survey

10/26/2026

🌧️ A wet summer, a bumper season for rare fungi!

The Northeast Rare Fungi Challenge is having a remarkable 2026 season, with 71 observations recorded so far—nearly twice the number documented during the same period in 2025. And the season isn't over yet!

Moist conditions have helped many of our target species make an appearance. Entoloma indigoferum and Clavulinopsis appalachiensis are among the most frequently observed species this season.

But some elusive fungi remain on the watchlist.

As autumn gives way to winter, the NERF team is preparing surveys for species including Tricholoma apium, Tricholoma grave, Volvariella surrecta, and the exceptionally elusive Echinodontium ballouii—last collected in Maine in 2014.

This work is made possible by a dedicated network of local mycology clubs, researchers, scientists, and community members. Recent highlights include a seemingly new population of Billie’s Bolete (Boletus billieae) documented in Massachusetts and a new partnership with Quebec-based nonprofit Mycosphaera to improve data collection.

Want to help document and conserve rare fungi? The Northeast Rare Fungi Challenge welcomes new members interested in field surveys, data collection, and bringing fungal conservation to their communities.

Get involved: [email protected]

Learn more about our community science initiatives through FUNDIS.

10/22/2026

🍄 A rare find in Florida: Entoloma gainesvillea

Some fungi are rarely seen—and every observation helps us understand them a little better.

Hannah Pickhardt recently documented Entoloma gainesvillea, marking just the second observation recorded since the Southeast Rare Fungi Challenge began. The previous observation dates to 2024!

A recent graduate of the University of Florida’s Wildlife Ecology and Conservation program, Hannah now works with the Florida Museum of Natural History and plans to continue monitoring the site.

Because the fungus was found within a Florida State Park, the specimen could not be collected for DNA sequencing. FUNDIS hopes to explore whether a collection permit might allow a future observation to be sequenced, adding valuable information to our understanding of this rare species.

Every sighting matters. Every record adds to the bigger picture of fungal biodiversity.

🔎 See Hannah’s observation on iNaturalist:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/397774912

The Southeast Rare Fungi Challenge is part of FUNDIS’s work to document and conserve North America’s fungal diversity through community science, research, and DNA sequencing.

Entoloma gainsvillae from Ichetucknee Springs State Park, Fort White, FL, US on September 5, 2026 at 01:55 PM by hannahpickhardt

10/13/2026

🍄 BUY MUSHROOM STICKERS. SUPPORT FUNGAL CONSERVATION.

Looking for a small way to make a real impact for fungi?

Sporelust! created a special Rare West Coast Fungi Sticker Sheet featuring five species from the FUNDIS West Coast Rare Fungi Challenge—and a portion of every purchase directly supports FUNDIS.

The sheet features five of the Challenge fungi:

🍄 Short-Branched Dendro
🍄 Fuzzy Peach Cup
🍄 Lobed Oysterling
🍄 Yellow-Gilled Cypress
🍄 Purple Prince Coral

Each sheet is $15, with $5.17 going to FUNDIS—or choose the $20 option and $10.17 goes directly to support our work. Sporelust! donates 50% of the profits from the sticker sheet to FUNDIS, helping support fungal biodiversity research and community science.

And when you buy a sheet, you’re doing something else we love: supporting Sporelust!, an independent small business built around mycology, original art, and a love of the fungal world.

So if you’ve been looking for an excuse to add a few more mushroom stickers to your field notebook, water bottle, laptop, or collecting gear—this is it.

🍄 Support a small fungi-focused business.
🌲 Support the West Coast Rare Fungi Challenge.
🔬 Support FUNDIS.
💚 And get some very cool fungi stickers while you’re at it.

SHOP THE STICKER SHEET:
https://www.sporelust.com/products/2024-rare-west-coast-fungi-sticker-sheet-no-1

Want to know the fungi you’re supporting? The West Coast Rare Fungi Challenge is working to document 20 rare and under-documented species across California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and British Columbia.

LEARN ABOUT THE CHALLENGE:
https://www.fundis.org/west-coast-rare-fungi-challenge

Buy the stickers. Find the fungi. Support the science. 🍄

A 2nd Printing of our limited release non-profit collaboration with FUNDIS! this sticker sheet features 5 Wild Mushrooms from their West Coast Fungi Challenge.

10/08/2026

🍄 October at FUNDIS: Finding Fungi

From one community scientist’s unexpected journey into mycology to rare fungi turning up across North America, this month’s newsletter is all about the people, places, and discoveries behind fungal conservation.

Inside the October edition, we’re sharing stories from the field, community science updates, new discoveries, and a closer look at the people helping build our understanding of fungal biodiversity.

Every observation adds another piece to the picture—and every person who documents, collects, sequences, identifies, or shares what they find helps make fungi more visible in conservation.

🍄 Read the October FUNDIS Newsletter:
https://fundis.substack.com/p/october-2026-newsletter-finding-fungi

And if you want more stories from the people behind the work, subscribe to the FUNDIS Substack and follow along each month.

10/08/2026

🍄 People Behind the Fungi: Sigrid Jakob

What starts with noticing a few puffballs in a New York City park can lead somewhere unexpected.

In the latest People Behind the Fungi, we sit down with Sigrid Jakob to talk about the path that took her from mushroom clubs and foraging to home DNA sequencing, scientific publishing, fungal conservation, and helping shape the organization that became FUNDIS.

Sigrid shares how she taught herself to sequence fungi at home, why community scientists belong in science, how the Rare Fungi Challenges first took shape, and why conservation works best when curiosity and discovery are part of the experience.

We also talk about something at the heart of FUNDIS: making the invisible visible. Fungi are essential parts of ecosystems, yet they are still too often missing from conservation conversations and land-management decisions. Better data—and more people looking closely—can help change that.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation and read Sigrid’s story:
https://fundis.substack.com/p/people-behind-the-fungi-sigrid-jakob

Our first episode is open to all FUNDIS subscribers. Subscribe to follow the People Behind the Fungi series, with new conversations each month.

From puffballs in a New York City park to kitchen DNA sequencing, scientific publishing, and helping shape FUNDIS

10/01/2026

We’re thrilled to see FUNDIS Sequencing Program Director,Harte Singer featured in a new story exploring how DNA sequencing is transforming our understanding of fungal biodiversity. 🍄🧬

Harte’s path from mushroom hunter to fungal DNA researcher has helped push community-based sequencing forward in California. Through CA FUNDIS, he has now sequenced more than 10,000 fungal specimens, helping flag as many as 1,000 potential new species for further study.

The article dives into the remarkable growth of accessible fungal DNA sequencing—and how community scientists, mycologists, and projects like CA FUNDIS are revealing just how much fungal diversity remains undocumented.

As Harte’s work demonstrates, sequencing isn’t simply about putting a name to a mushroom. It can uncover overlooked biodiversity, strengthen the data available to researchers and conservationists, and help us better understand the fungi shaping California’s ecosystems.

Read the full story from Bay Nature:
https://baynature.org/2026/09/30/science-nature/fungi/people-are-sequencing-mushroom-dna-at-home-now/

And they’ve blown open the world of fungal biodiversity, in California and beyond.

09/28/2026

🍄 What happens after a mushroom goes into the DNA sequencing pipeline?

A lot more than most of us ever see.

In the first installment of People Behind the Fungi, meet Josh Walker, a longtime mushroom hunter and retired software engineer whose curiosity about a slow, hands-on sequencing workflow turned into a question:

Could software make this better?

That question led Josh to build specimux, speconsense, and specimux-suite—open-source tools helping community mycologists sort DNA reads, build consensus sequences, and begin identifying fungal collections while a sequencing run is still underway.

At the 2026 NAMA Yoop foray, that meant something remarkable: a fungus could be collected, documented, sequenced and analyzed while people were still in the field.

And sometimes the most important result isn’t a name at all. It’s a sequence that doesn’t quite match anything—and a reason to head back into the forest for another look. 🍄🌲

“The goal is simple: a sequence and a name for every collection before the foray is over.” — Josh Walker

Read From Forest to Sequence: How Josh Walker Is Changing Community Mycology, the first story in our new People Behind the Fungi series.

🔗 Read on the FUNDIS Substack: fundis.substack.com

**People Behind the Fungi** introduces FUNDIS subscribers to the scientists, community researchers, volunteers and collaborators expanding what we know about fungi—and helping turn that knowledge into conservation.

09/24/2026

What if a mushroom collected in the field could begin revealing its DNA story before the foray was even over?

At the NAMA Yoop Foray, FUNDIS Sequencing Program Director Harte Singer and Stephen Russell helped demonstrate a new live sequencing workflow built around Joshua O. Walker’s open-source Specimux-Suite.

The result: fungal specimens moving from field collection to sequence results in about 16 hours.

For community science, that kind of speed changes what is possible—especially when a sequence doesn’t match what is already represented in the reference library.

Our latest FUNDIS feature looks at what happened at NAMA, how the workflow works, and why real-time fungal sequencing could make field discovery even more useful.

Read: From the Field to the Sequence: Harte Singer at NAMA



https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-field-sequence-harte-singer-nama-fungal-diversity-survey-9kmsc/?trackingId=8PtaU%2BsydXrD6GMt9RLxnw%3D%3D

09/21/2026

🍄 FUNDIS Spotlight

**Meet Board Member Michael Heim**

Michael Heim is a forager, cultivator, and educator based in Lafayette, Colorado, where he founded Ensō Farm and Forage in 2015. A Certified Wild Mushroom Expert through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, he is among a small number of people in the state authorized to identify and approve wild mushrooms for commercial culinary use.

Michael’s work in mycology grew through the Colorado Mycological Society, where he served as newsletter editor, board member, and later president. He remains active with CMS today, leading forays and continuing his microscopy work. He also volunteered at the Sam Mitchell Herbarium of Fungi at the Denver Botanic Gardens, helping accession and catalogue native Colorado fungi.

In 2024, Michael authored the polypore chapter of *Foraging Mushrooms of the Rocky Mountains* and contributed several recipes to the book.

Teaching and community are at the center of his work. Michael has led workshops and forays at mushroom festivals in Telluride, Eagle, and the Santa Cruz Mountains, and has taught for organizations including Denver Botanic Gardens, Walking Mountains Science Center, Escoffier Culinary Institute, and Fjällräven.

He also helped launch **MycoReach**, an open-source mycology initiative focused on community science, education, and bringing fungal research into the field through its mobile mushroom lab.

Michael joined the FUNDIS board in 2026, bringing years of experience in field education, regional mycology, community science, and connecting people with fungi.

We’re excited to have him helping shape what comes next for FUNDIS.

09/18/2026

🍄 Midwest Rare Fungi Challenge 🍄

Help us build it in 2026. Find fungi with us in 2027.

Across the Midwest, rare and under-documented fungi are waiting to be found.

FUNDIS is building the Midwest Rare Fungi Challenge, bringing mushroom people, community scientists, mycologists, and local clubs together to find and document the fungi we still know too little about.

Before we head into the field, we’re building the network: selecting 20 rare target species, recruiting regional volunteers, creating field resources and an iNaturalist project, and finding the partners and funding to make it happen.

We need mushroom people. 🍄

Know Midwest fungi? Belong to a local club? Want to volunteer, sponsor the Challenge, or help fund the science?

This is where it starts.

Our goal is to raise $5,000 to help launch the Midwest Rare Fungi Challenge.

✨ Launching in 2027 ✨
Get outside. Look closely. Document what you find.

Let’s find out what’s growing in the Midwest.

https://www.fundis.org/midwest-rare-fungi-challenge