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Address:
DEB-Department of Ecological and Biological Science, Largo dell’Università snc 01100 Viterbo.
Opening Hours:
by appointement
Contact:
Laura Selbmann.
selbmann@unitus.it
Phone: +39 (0) 761 357012
Links:
Museo Nazionale dell‘Antartide “F. Ippolito”- sezione micologica
University of Tuscia
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Description:
The Mycological Section of the Italian National Museum of Antarctica was established in 2006; it includes a collection of rocks hosting microbial communities and a fungal culture collection (CCFEE, Culture Collection of Fungi From Extreme Environments). The collection is maintained in the Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Mycology, Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences (DEB), University of Tuscia, Viterbo (I). This collection, unique in the world, was established in the late ‘80s as a result of mycological researches carried out in Antarctica in the framework of PNRA (National Program for Research in Antarctica). The collection includes fungal strains isolated from different samples collected over more than 20 years of Italian expeditions in Antarctica and many strains donated in 2000 by I.E. Friedmann (Florida State University), the discoverer of endolithic life in deserts.
The Antarctic fungal strains of the collection have been isolated from different substrates such as soil, mosses, lichens and, especially, rocks colonized by communities of cryptoendolithic (growing inside the rock) fungi and lichens. Moreover, isolations are made also on a wide selection of rock samples collected in the driest cold and hot areas worldwide (eg. Indian Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Bolivian Salaar, Australian and Algerian deserts) kindly supplied by mountain climbers, guides and travelers. At present the collection includes about 1000 fungal strains; yet, the number is increasing because of the current new isolations;andthanks to collaborations and exchanges with other research centers and both Italian and foreign universities.
The CCFEE hosts filamentous fungi, yeasts and black meristematic fungi; the latter, due to their strong melanization, as well as peculiar morphological and physiological adaptations, are capable to tolerate extremes; of temperature, radiation and osmotic stress. Because of the poor differentiation their Systematics must be approached with molecular techniques.
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