[Nhcoll-l] Advocate for the future of the US National Fungus Collections

[Alison H. Harrington]

Hi NHColl,

As you may have heard, the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
(BARC) in Maryland is slated for reorganization and dispersal across other
USDA hubs across the country. Although this sparse-on-details plan
<https://www.usda.gov/ree/reorganization> brings up many legitimate
concerns, the fungal collections community want to highlight that the US
National Fungus Collections
<https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-barc/beltsville-agricultural-research-center/mycology-and-nematology-genetic-diversity-and-biology-laboratory/docs/us-national-fungus-collections-bpi/us-national-fungus-collections-databases/>,
one of the largest natural history collections of fungi in the world and
the mycology/plant pathology equivalent of a collection in the Smithsonian
Institution, is managed by the USDA and is housed in BARC.

The USDA reorganization plan does not contain any specific information
about the fate of these critical collections, which are already suffering
from limited federal funding, leading to fears that this resource of over a
million specimens will fall into neglect and disrepair following loss of
staff and a wildly underfunded and poorly planned move to a yet-undisclosed
location.

In September 2025, the Natural Science Collections Alliance released a
statement
<https://nscalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/NSCA-Comments-on-BARC-Closure-Collections-Relocation_091225.pdf>
expressing concern about the potential impact the proposed BARC relocation
would have on the collections housed there, and offered expertise to inform
planning related to the future of the collections. However, no further
details have emerged.

The Mycological Society of America recently released a statement
<https://files.constantcontact.com/8b73de79701/bd90f37f-8a4e-4148-979f-1219bad3ad0f.pdf?rdr=true>
of support for the US National Fungus Collections, which emphasized the
importance of the collections to the agricultural security of the United
States and requested additional support for the collections.

Yet, we still have no information about what might happen to these
collections or the associated staff, and it is unclear if the collections
have been subject to any consideration in the USDA reorganization.

Please consider reaching out to your representatives to express your
concern for the fate of this collection and demand transparency in planning
for its future: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member.

Please sign and share this petition that briefly outlines the concerns
about the impact of the reorganization and requests transparency and
support for the collections:
https://www.change.org/p/preserve-and-support-the-u-s-national-fungus-collections
.

Thanks for your consideration,
Alison, on behalf of the Mycological Society of America ad hoc Committee on
Fungal Collections

-- 
*Alison H. Harrington, PhD*
*Research Collections Manager | Fungi, Lichens, Bryophytes*
University of Michigan Herbarium (MICH) | Research Museums Center
3600 Varsity Drive #1042 | Ann Arbor, MI 48108-2228
Collection of Zoosporic Eufungi at UM (CZEUM) | czeum.herb.lsa.umich.edu
alisonhh at umich.edu | 734.936.8028
*Donate here to support the fungal collections
<https://giving.umich.edu/um/w/fungi-collection-support-fund-386802>!*
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