Index Fungorum

Index Fungorum is the world database of fungal names (including yeasts, lichens, chromistan fungi, protozoan fungi and fossil forms) at species level and below.

Description

The Index of Fungi is a publication from CABI and currently provides the majority of recently published names. Certain data elements (name string, author string, year of publication) from the Index of Fungi are made available through Index Fungorum. The remaining data elements are not immediately available but are made so after five years.1

Amanita muscaria2

For most entries the taxonomic hierarchy attached to a name is either derived from the nomenclatural position of the genus through its type (thus Helotium appears in the Tricholomataceae because the type of Helotium is a basidiomycete), or in some cases through the presumed position based on an assessment of associated homotypic names. Only in GSD (Global Species Database) data, or other data for which a taxonomic opinion is available (and which contribute to the Catalogue of Life - see Species 2000), is the correct taxonomic position of a name known through the position of the currently accepted name.

The database has been derived from a number of published lists including Saccardo’s Sylloge Fungorum, Petrak’s Lists, Saccardo’s Omissions, Lamb’s Index, Zahlbruckner’s Catalogue of Lichens (comprehensive for names at species level only but with an increasing number of names of infraspecific taxa) and the Index of Fungi. A name record will usually have a reference to an entry in one or more of these published lists in addition to other data derived from numerous acknowledged sources. Author citations conform to the Brummitt & Powell standard.3

Function

• Taxonomy
  • Identification tools, keys
• User interface
  • Personal use
  • Visual presentation

Why use this tool?

• An authoritative source of fungi names.

Who will use this tool?

• Data creation
  • Experts - taxonomy
• Data users
  • Expert
  • Interest groups

How will the tool be used?

Persistent identifiers have been implemented for the records in the Index Fungorum database. Each record is assigned an LSID with the following structure:4

urn:lsid:indexfungorum.org:names:nnnnnn

The current database structure does not support the assignment of LSIDs to the taxonomic opinions expressed in the ‘Species Fungorum’ component; only the names in a nomenclatural sense are assigned LSIDs.

Search terms can be truncated without using wildcards. The database search restricts you to 6000 records so if you enter something as vague as ‘A’ you will not get all the records.

Names with blue links are names for which there is no taxonomic opinion available, red links are misapplied names (names which have been used in a sense which is different from that as represented by the type of the name), green links are names where a taxonomic opinion has been expressed and lead directly to the appropriate page.

Entries with ‘[GSD]’ or ‘[RSD]’ have onward links to Global Species Databases or Regional Species Databases and full synonymy data. 5

Full publication details are provided for some entries from CABI’s Index of Fungi. However, full details of names published during the last 5 years have been omitted6 to encourage you to take out a subscription.

• Online searchable database
• Cookies should be enabled for navigation
• User input required

Where in the data chain could this tool be used?

• User’s machine

When could this tool be used?

• At the time of a user request

Availability

• CABI Bioscience Databases: http://www.indexfungorum.org/
• Search: http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp
• Development is active and current. 400,000 records online.
• Cost: free
• Intellectual property lies with the contributors 7

Comments

• No common names
• Commonly there may be an image of the page of the original citation