2019 was a good year for the Colorado Mycoflora Project. Through a lot of work and coordination between staff and volunteers, our workflows have increased efficiency in collecting and accessioning fungal specimens into the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi.

The rapid growth in the number of specimens accessioned can be seen in the chart below. In 2019 we saw an 85% increase in accessioned specimens (orange bars), totaling 1161 specimens. This number includes specimens from previous years as well as 2019. This might give you some idea of the backlog we struggle with. And to tell you the truth, there’s a lot more waiting.

The number of specimens collected in 2019 increased by approximately 23% over 2018. The number of 2019 specimens accessioned and in the MyCoPortal is 375, but add to this the specimens brought back from the Telluride Mushroom Festival – which have yet to be accessioned and published online (remember what I said about backlog) – and the total collected on the year equals 573. Of course, there are a number of additional specimens collected in 2019 that can also be added to this, but we will have to be patient in adding them as we continue to make progress on multiple fronts.

To check out the 375 collections accessioned on the MyCoPortal, you can look up the first 230 collections HERE, and the next 145 HERE. Who knows, some of these may be your collections!

As for the “multiple fronts” mentioned, 2020 is set to be a busy year. I have already shared how busy 2019 has been. Well remember what I said about backlog? In 2020 we’ll be working on that and hopefully in the next few years you’ll see those orange bars start leveling off soon to be followed by shrinking in the years that follow. Also, we soon will be moving into the new herbarium in the Freyer-Newman Center for Science, Art and Education. In addition, we have a number of manuscripts in the works. One analyzes metadata on what is known regarding the fungi in the Southern Rockies. We are also working with students at Rock Canyon High School who are sequencing Russula of the Southern Rockies as part of their senior project. Check out THEIR SITE and read their blog under “Updates”.

Well this has been a long time in coming, but I’ve finally gotten around to updating the protocols for the Colorado Mycoflora Project and Wilson Lab.

Click on the link above to peruse our protocols. While this is considered an upgrade you will also clearly see that there’s a lot of gaps remaining to be filled with all the “Coming soon[ish]” remarks. Once those get shored up I’ll post another announcement.

It’s been over 11 months since our last post. Where have we been? What have we been doing all this time?

The answer is, a lot… 2019 has been an extremely active year and here are a few of the details:

• Andy (me) celebrated his 2nd work anniversary in January.
• In May, Andy went to Salt Lake City to visit Bryn Dentinger at the Natural History Museum of Utah.
• In May we also said goodbye to Dr. Melissa Islam, the Head Curator at Denver Botanic Gardens. She set off to a new life in Idaho and Seattle, WA with her family. She’s been missed.
• Early June took Andy to Rachel Koch’s wedding in Minneapolis. There he got to reunite with Cathie Aime and other members of her lab.
• Right after the wedding Andy took his annual pilgrimage to the Sierra Nevada Field Campus and the Spring Fungi course.
  • Seriously consider taking this course if you are interested in “leveling up” your mushroom ID skills.
• Justin Loucks started as a summer seasonal employee, helping generate and organize DNA sequence data for the Colorado Mycoflora Project.
• June was also busy writing the NSF CAREER proposal for the Colorado Mycoflora Project. This was important because the proposal was due on July 17th, and this was important because…
• July 15-19, Andy took part in the Workshop to Enhance Collaboration Between US and Indonesia in Biodiversity and Conservation Research in Bogor, Indonesia.
  • You can read more about this on Andy’s Travel Blog.
• During the trip Andy got to reconnect with fellow mycologists in the region, Atik Retnowati, Jaya Seelan, Dr Viki, Tan Yee Shin, and Agnes Chan.
  • This story will be on the travel blog too, whenever Andy gets around to it.
• Early August Vera and Andy returned to ACES to teach their Mushroom ID course.
  • Andy got tricked seeing double…

• After ACES, Andy went to the Adirondacks in upstate, New York for the North American Mycological Association’s Meeting at Paul Smith’s.
• Before the end of the NAMA meeting, Andy had to fly back to Denver for the CMS Mushroom Festival on August 11th.
  • The Fair Identifier this year was Dr. Andrew Methven. We had a great time and went for Ethiopian food after the fair.

• Rick Levy and Andy then left two days later for the Telluride Mushroom Festival. They took a few days after the festival to travel down the Million Dollar Highway and collect in the San Juan Mountains and Rio Grande National Forests. They came back with nearly 200 collections.
• Gary Olds started his Ph.D. program at University of Colorado Denver.
• Andy finished out the month of August by celebrating his parent’s 50th anniversary with them and friends in California.
• At the end of August and into early September the Research and Conservation Department at DBG began interviewing for the Head Curator position.
• September was a lot of organizing, packing and moving the lab into the herbarium.
  • More details on this to come.
• The Sam Mitchel Herbarium had to temporarily say goodbye to their volunteers as we prepare for the big move.

And the year isn’t over. I very much want to keep up with the blogging and updating the website with content so stay tuned for more to come.

Whether or not I get my wish, we’ll have to see.
Andy out…

EDIT 10/6/2019: Some other details that were left out.

• In May, Rock Canyon High School students Andrew Hines, Camden Meyer, and Jason McDonald sampled tissues from Russula specimens for their 2019-2020 Biotechnology class project.
  • The students presented their project to teachers and parents in September.
• Caroline Hildebrand put together her master’s thesis proposal using GPS to develop diversity models for predicting habitats for macrofungi in the Southern Rockies.