Towards the digitization of the plant pathogenic fungi of major Swiss Herbaria (Bern, Geneva and Zurich)

Abstract

The Swiss Herbaria Geneva, Zurich and Bern house important mycological collections that include specimens from all fungal groups and geographic regions of the world. Plant-pathogenic fungi (ie. rust, smut and mildew) are particularly well represented in these collections and count approximalty150,000 specimens. Until recently, these collections were not catalogued, and hence not freely accessible and their taxonomic diversity was unknown. The herbaria of Geneva and Zurich cooperate to curate, digitize and make available online these collections with the ultimate goal of creating a complete digital inventory of the plant-pathogenic fungi of the Swiss herbaria, thanks to the support from the SwissCollNet initiative (project SCN 139-ZH). The digitization program includes the nomenclatural updating of all records and recording of the label information. For type specimens exclusively, it also includes the preparation of slides and micrographs with the aim of publishing images of the characters required for species identification (deep-digitalization) and reducing the need for further destructive sampling or loss during loans. Within the framework of this project more than 1,600 new type specimens have been identified. To date (March 2024), approximately 80,000 specimens are accessible online provided by the public databases of the two herbaria; 2,500 type specimens have been catalogued and over 1,200 type specimens have been deep-digitized. Moreover, the project has led to the discovery of new species and the publication of a checklist of Swiss rust fungi.