The Mycology.Net – An Internet Portal from Scientists for Scientists Presenting Information about Diversity of Fungi

The Mycology.Net

The global political consensus on the importance and necessity of biodiversity research for environmental research and management has grown immensely during the last years. In the same period the development of technologies for managing electronic data has been enormous, especially with respect to techniques for data exchange. It is in this favourable context that The Mycology.Net has been established as a non-commercial scientific data platform. The platform is supported by several institutions and further institutions interested are invited to participate.

The Mycology.Net aims to

• provide online data on the biodiversity of fungi, including lichens, especially their taxonomy, distribution, phylogeny, descriptive characters, collections, literature etc.
• inform about mycological institutions, journals, databases (link sections) and persons engaged in mycology
• facilitate interaction between databases and support the development of standards for data exchange
• reach scientists all over the world and invite them to use the platform and to help improving the quality and quantity of data
• maintain a discussion forum for mycological subjects and the further development of the platform itself

The vision of the Mycology.Net project is to establish a platform of advanced technology where published data independent of their physical location can be virtually joined and used for the most sophisticated queries.