- Some plant, animal, and fungal species are common to eastern North
America and eastern Asia, but are not found anywhere else in the world.
Based on publications and herbarium specimens, it is estimated that the
number of disjunct species of macrofungi (mushrooms, polypores, coral fungi,
puffballs, cup fungi, etc.) in selected groups ranges from 5% to 12% of
the total number of eastern North American species. These numbers are higher
than those reported for North American - European disjuncts or for western
North American - eastern Asian disjuncts in these groups. However, basic
questions such as the extent and level of similarity between the macrofungi
of the two regions have not been rigorously studied.To address this issue,
we are conducting a US - China cooperative study to compare biodiversity
of macrofungi of China with that of eastern North America and to test genetic
relatedness and variability among and within geographically isolated populations
of species that have eastern Asian and eastern North American disjunct
distributions.
Presented here is an introduction to the project, divided into several
parts: Project Description outlines
the need for this study, methodology and work plan, expected scientific
benefits, and the U.S. - China cooperation aspects of the project; Study Sites covers scenery, vegetation, and
geographical information of our primary research localities in both China
and the U.S.; Images of Fungi displays pictures
of fungi collected from the study sites and some disjunct species; Publications presents data from our previous
studies on disjunct distributions of macrofungi, particularly on two putative
disjunct species, Lactarius indigo
and Suillus spraguei , along with
a Reference
List of related scientific publications; Participants
shows pictures and resumes of the people involved in this project.
We hope you enjoy our site, and if you have any comments, we hope you Contact us .
This project is co-funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the
Chinese National Natural Science Foundation. We have also received financial
support for fieldwork from the Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation. Finally,
we are deeply grateful to the valuable support of the following institutions:
the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA; the Systematic Mycology
and Lichenology Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology, Beijing, China;
Highlands Biological Station, North Carolina, and Huron Mountain Wildlife
Foundation, Michigan, USA; Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve, Jilin, and
Fanjing Mountain Nature Reserve, Guizhou, China. You are welcome to visit
their sites as listed in Links .
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