Mycologists are now routinely analyzing fungal communities directly from the soil using
metagenomics. In order to link these environmental sequences to actual species, a solid taxonomical
framework is needed with which sequence data can be compared. As most ecosystems worldwide,
tropical and subtropical African forests are depending on ectomycorrhizal associations, often with
fungi that form mushrooms. This project wants to contribute to the knowledge of the diversity in
these ecosystems by constructing a reference framework for the African ectomycorrhizal fungal
genera, making use of a wealth of hidden information: the fungal herbarium of Ghent University.
The fungal herbarium contains over 35000 collections, of which at least 5000 are African. The
majority of specimens and their associated data is not digitized and hence hidden for research. We
aim to digitize the African collections and their associated data, provide the 1000 most important
collections with a DNA barcode and make this data publicly available on different portals. Together
with our collaborators, we will combine this information with existing data and phylogenies, to
construct a comprehensive taxonomical framework on African ectomycorrhizal genera. Such a
reference framework will augment metagenomic studies to a higher level.