Roadmap for Culture Collections in India to Enrich Themselves with Indigenous Fungal Biodiversity

India is a tropical country with a wide variety of habitat types that harbour a great diversity of fungi¹. These fungi include both beneficial forms like edible mushrooms, mould-producing industrial enzymes or other biotechnologically important products along with the ones like yeasts, indispensable for bread and wine industry and those that cause diseases in humans, animals and plants apart from a few that produce toxins. A large part of India’s fungal diversity is still unknown, as evidenced by regular reports of new genera or species being published^2–8. During a recent study of Maharashtra soils covering 31 districts, we have so far recovered 2 new genera and 9 new species of keratinophilic fungi⁹. These findings suggest that even well-studied locations in India like Maharashtra harbour many novel taxa that might possess biotechnologically important properties. Therefore, there is need for a fresh, systematic survey of India’s soils (or other niches) to recover unknown fungi.