Fruiting bodies (mushrooms) will be collected, photographed, described, dried and accessioned into TENN-Fu (University of Tennessee Herbarium). Collection data will be transmitted to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, will be available via the Tennessee Herbarium web site and via the IDigBio collections portal. For collections that are sequenced, DNAs are stored at -80C at the University of Tennessee and sequences are deposited in GenBank with the annotation Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

We plan to collect and identify particular groups of fungi growing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These fungi represent basidiomycetes that mostly grow on dead trees and are responsible for the decay of wood in the forest ecosystem. Some taxa inhabit living trees, causing different diseases. Another study group includes ascomycetes that grow as parasites on macrofungi. Collecting in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is part of worldwide sampling for completing monographic studies on the taxonomy, ecology and distribution of these fungal groups.

This permit was to photograph fungi in the park. No full reports are available, but a file is in with the permits containing paper records of 83 fungal observations, mostly from 2005 and the late 1980s. A permit from 1985 to Dr. Richard D. Jackson, MD, is also included under this study.

This permit was to photograph fungi in the park. No full reports are available, but a file is in with the permits containing paper records of 83 fungal observations, mostly from 2005 and the late 1980s. A permit from 1985 to Dr. Richard D. Jackson, MD, is also included under this study.

This database includes ratings of branch dieback, defoliation, beech scale and presence of Nectria spp. on high elevation American beech at least 3.5 cm in diameter in ten 20m x 20m plots established in 1994 and evaluated every two years until 2012. Dieback and defoliation ratings of non-beech woody stems larger than 3.5 cm in diameter and counts of seedlings and woody stem regeneration by species in subplots are also included.

This database includes ratings of branch dieback, defoliation, beech scale and presence of Nectria spp. on high elevation American beech at least 3.5 cm in diameter in ten 20m x 20m plots established in 1994 and evaluated every two years until 2012. Dieback and defoliation ratings of non-beech woody stems larger than 3.5 cm in diameter and counts of seedlings and woody stem regeneration by species in subplots are also included.

,In a 2023 survey evaluating conifers with Rosellinia infections, five Pestalotiopsis-like fungal endophytes were isolated from plant samples obtained from Maine, New Hampshire, and Ohio by The Mycology & Nematology Genetic Diversity & Biology Laboratory at the United States Department of Agriculture. The two data sets provided herein contain species-specific base pair substitutions for the partial translation elongation factor 1-alpha gene (TEF). In the alignments, the novel Pestalotiopsis fungi are compared to their most closely related species. The data set can be used as a diagnostic tool to differentiate between the closely related species.,DNA was extracted from fungal samples using the E.Z.N.A HP Plant & Fungal DNA Kit (OMEGA® Bio-Tek, Norcross, GA, USA) following manufacturer’s protocol. The TEF locus was amplified, and reactions were conducted in 25 μL volumes with 12.5 μL of KAPA2G Robust Hotstart® (Kapa Biosystems, Inc., Wilmington, MA, USA), 1.25 μL of the forward and reverse primers at 10 μM, 1-1.75 μL of DNA at 10-20 ng, and 8 μL of molecular grade H2O. Amplifications were performed following the protocol described by Maharachchikumbura et al. (2014) in a C1000 Touch PCR Thermal Cycler (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA). PCR products were analyzed through capillary electrophoresis with the QIAxcel Advanced System instrument and the QIAxcel ScreenGel software (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). PCR products were then purified using ExoSAP-IT Cleanup (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA) following the manufacturer’s protocol. The BigDye™ 3.1 Terminator Cycle sequencing kit was used to sequence amplicons bi-directionally with the Applied Biosystems SeqStudio Genetic Analyzer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA).,Resources in this dataset:,,,

Field Methods: Given the exploratory nature of this study, sampling will be conducted opportunistically for a maximum of five sites within the GSMNP. At each site, cankers will be identified and sampled for a maximum of five trees per tree species. At each site, the total number of trees sampled will be limited to fifteen trees to prevent excessive disturbance. For each sampled tree, a total of sixteen microsamples (~1 mm bark plugs) will be taken using a bone marrow biopsy tool, and four bark disks (~1 cm diameter) will be taken using a steel punch. These samples will be stored in a sealed sampling trays then placed in a gasket sealed Tupperware container to prevent introducing the collected samples to new areas. To adhere to and respect the management strategies of the GSMNP, all sites can occur within designated areas of the park known to have BBD if necessary.