A digital specimen saves the record, not the fungus

A herbarium sheet with a dried fruiting body looks modest, but it may be the only evidence that a species occurred in a particular place a hundred years ago. The label records the date, the collector, the host and the former name; the specimen itself allows the microscopy, and sometimes the DNA, to be checked again. Digitisation combines this scattered evidence into a searchable body of data, but it does not automatically turn it into a ready-made conservation map.

Old coordinates are often approximated to a settlement, names are revised, and the absence of a specimen from a given period may mean an absence of study. A modern photograph without a view of the underside, the substrate and a scale often will not allow an identification to be confirmed. Each type of data has a different limitation. The strongest picture emerges when a specimen, photographic documentation, a sequence and repeated visits describe the same organism and habitat.

The Important Fungus Areas programme uses such information to designate places of national or regional significance. What counts is not only the presence of a single rarity, but also exceptional assemblages, habitat continuity and real threat. A combined database helps to notice an area overlooked by conservation focused on plants and vertebrates. The next step still requires an expert: verification of the taxonomy, an assessment of completeness, and a conversation with the site manager.

Citizen science has a clear role here, provided the observer records characters, date and habitat and accepts correction of an identification. A mass of points without quality can imitate knowledge. A well-described find, by contrast, fills the gap between the rare visits of professional mycologists. When publishing a sensitive site, the precision of the location has to be reduced; the aim is to protect a population, not to rank the most exotic finds.

A record is an evidence network, not just a scan

A useful digital record connects a persistent institutional identifier and catalogue number to an image, original label, collector and date, locality with uncertainty, host or substrate, determiner and later revisions. The Digital Extended Specimen concept adds links to DNA sequences, tissue samples, chemical analyses and publications while retaining provenance. This is especially valuable for fungi whose names change after molecular revision. Kew holds more than 1.25 million dried fungal specimens and continually releases more images and records. Digitisation broadens access and reduces handling of fragile material, but it does not replace the fungarium: an image cannot be re-examined for spores, chemistry or DNA, and a record without an identifier and explicit uncertainty may simply distribute an error more efficiently.