This website is a place to view all the fungal collections made by GeorgeLee(me😉) at the Redlair Nature Preserve
“The Macrofungi of Redlair” is a pet name given to a bio blitz specific to Redlair Nature Preserve, solely for fungi. The aim of the project is to collect any fungi observable with the naked eye in the preserve, and have it identified by genetic markers. My job is to document the find with pictures, time, date, location, and other relevant info. I then create an entry for each find (with aforementioned data) on inaturalist.org . Next I collect each specimen, dry it at low temperature, and voucher it with a link to the iNaturalist entry. I then package the appropriately dried specimens, with their vouchers and ship them to Mycota labs.
The genetic markers used to identify the collections are in the ITS region, located between the small and large sub-units of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences. Although other markers may be used , depending on the specimen.
The work of extracting the target DNA, amplification of the sequence, clean up, interpretation, and validation of the findings are done by Stephen Russell with Mycota labs and his designees. Stephen's team then uploads their findings to the iNaturalist entry giving us the results.
Then, from iNaturalist I bring the results here for final display.
More information on the Redlair Preserve:
The project as seen on iNaturalist:
An interactive list of specimens: