Sequencing fungal genomes has now become very common and the list of genomes in this manuscript reflects this. Particularly relevant is that the first announcement is a re-identification of Penicillium genomes available on NCBI. The fact that more than 100 of these genomes have been deposited without the correct species names speak volumes to the fact that we must continue training fungal taxonomists and the importance of the International Mycological Association (after which this journal is named). When we started the genome series in 2013, one of the essential aspects was the need to have a phylogenetic tree as part of the manuscript. This came about as the result of a discussion with colleagues in NCBI who were trying to deal with the very many incorrectly identified bacterial genomes (at the time) which had been submitted to NCBI. We are now in the same position with fungal genomes. Sequencing a fungal genome is all too easy but providing a correct species name and ensuring that the fungus has in fact been correctly identified seems to be more difficult. We know that there are thousands of fungi which have not yet been described. The availability of sequence data has made identification of fungi easier but also serves to highlight the need to have a fungal taxonomist in the project to make sure that mistakes are not made.

Trichoderma atroviride SC1 genome sequencing was carried out at the Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic, and was funded by the Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_025/0007314) and by the Internal Grant of Mendel University in Brno, No. IGA-ZF/2021-SI2005. The work on Penicillium species from dry cured meat (proposal: 10.46936/10.25585/60001195) conducted by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337) proposal: 10.46936/10.25585/60001195; DOE BER Bioenergy Research Center, are supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Funding for the project on the T. carnegiei and the Pewenomyces species genomes was provided by Department of Science and Innovation (DSI)-National Research Foundation (NRF) Centre of Excellence in Plant Health Biotechnology (CPHB), South Africa and the DST-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics.

Peer reviewed