XVI International Botanical Congess

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is now home to America's first All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. During the next 10-15 years researchers will map and identify all organisms within the Park's 810 square miles. This year the Fungal Taxonomic Working Group (TWIG) is conducting Butterflies of the Soil", an important ATBI model pilot-study designed to illustrate how trained mycologists and parataxonomists can more efficiently locate previously unreported taxa and discover species new to science. Every month from March to November, pilot-study volunteers will sample sporocarps of all macrofungi found within a 400m2 transect and send the photographed and dried vouchers to specialists for identification. Many new fungal species are expected to result from the inventory.