Towards a virtual reality for plant-associated fungi in the United States and Canada

At present knowledge of fungal biodiversity in North America is scattered in diverse sources ranging from well-reviewed, comprehensive databases to unedited databases of reports from the literature, information on file cards, and uncomputerized reference collections. Resources available electronically were used to determine their relative importance in evaluating the plant-associated fungi known from the United States and to a lesser extent Canada. The results demonstrate that the literature provides the greatest information but that reference collections in the US National Fungus Collections contribute between 22-31% additional data. Little overlap exists between fungi isolated as endophytes and those reported in the literature or as reference collections. Eighty to 100% of the plant-associated fungi reported from Canada are accounted for in comprehensive resources for the United States. A comprehensive database of plant-associated fungi in Canada, the United States, and eventually Mexico would serve as a valuable resource for those making plant quarantine decisions.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]