Abstract
Taxonomy is the discipline responsible for the classification of organisms and involves sampling, discovery, and description of species. Fungi are a large group of eukaryotic organisms very diverse in morphology, physiology, and ecology. It is very difficult to delimit a species concept which is common to all fungal groups. In general, taxonomists continue using morphological characters; however, DNA sequence analysis (barcoding) is now essential to discover the true identity of new fungal species. In this chapter some aspects of teaching mycology will be summarized, including websides where fungi from different countries are well-documented, as well as scientific databases available for various groups of fungi and the application of new technologies. Some examples when training taxonomists all around the World are included, such as collecting in the rain forest with Malaysian and Thai students, teaching general and master courses in Australia, Brazil, Ecuador and India, and on-line-tools needed for the effective training of students and teachers when they are particularly when separated by long distances.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge to all the students and colleagues for helpful discussions when preparing our mycological courses. M.P.M. would like to thank to those involved in FungiNote: Wake App! (production and design), Ricardo Sánchez Sotres (technological development and programming), colleagues who collaborate on the first 150 scientific contents (F.D. Calonge, L. Suz, R. Pino-Bodas, M. Tabarés and D. Sierra), and to the CSIC. To F. Pando (www.gbif.es) for helping with Fig. 1.
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Martín, M.P., Watling, R. (2016). Teaching Mycology Worldwide. In: Castro, P., Azeiteiro, U., Bacelar-Nicolau, P., Leal Filho, W., Azul, A. (eds) Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development . World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_5
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