As part of a new conservation strategy, the UK is to merge two large fungal collections.
There are already 800,000 specimens of mushrooms, puffball, toadstools and micro-fungi kept in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew, including the specimens collected by Charles Darwin. Some 400,000 collection from the CABI research institute will be added, including a specimen of Sir Alexander Fleming’s penicillin producing culture, 138 specimens of the potato blight organism and the key reference sample of the Dutch elm disease that changed the face of the English landscape in the 1970s.
I guess that must include both preserved and living material, but I could be wrong. What about doing the same rationalization for plant genetic resources collections? Well, one bit of agrobiodiversity at the time, eh?
Reading the CABI press release, it seems that the 2 collections are being rationalised. Put simply, herbarium specimens to Kew and living cultures to CABI; taxonomic research at Kew, screening for properties at CABI. It’s also important to realise that the CABI collection is one of the UK service culture collections, collectively called the “United Kingdom National Culture Collection” set up to provide access to significant collections of microbial genetic resources.