Thanks to those who completed our recent member survey! The responses indicated that members very much consider our core role to continue to be maintaining our fungi records database (with transfers to the Atlas of Living Australia) and continuing to encourage the public to submit fungi records via iNaturalist (which also goes to the Atlas of Living Australia). However alongside this, members would like us to be doing more advocacy for fungi at the local, state or national level.
Following this, the Fungimap Committee of Management recently held a strategy session to work out our objectives for the short and long term (in addition to our usual activities). Our main short term goal is the publication of Fungi Down Under 2, but over the longer term we want to see the fungi data that has been collected by community citizen scientists over the past few decades being used more in research, conservation and advocacy. We are looking at the idea of a Fungimap Research Grant to foster and stimulate research using citizen science data. We are also looking at strategies for more local council consideration and understanding of fungi, trying to provide input to the next State of the Environment report, looking at ways to work more with other environmental organisations at the national level, and analysing the data for more species to be included in the Threatened Species Index. We will keep you updated as these projects develop.
On the subject of research, we would love to hear from you if you or someone you know is doing any particular research which uses iNaturalist or Atlas of Living Australia fungi data contributed by citizen scientists. Please get in touch at fungimap@gmail.com
And just a reminder for those in bushfire-affected areas (ie areas where fires have been through over the past few summers), PLEASE continue to contribute fungi sightings to the ‘Fungimap Australia’ project on iNaturalist so we can start to do some analysis of the role that fungi plays in post-fire landscapes. You can find out more about this here.