The Preservation and Maintenance of Living Fungi, 2nd Edition

The Preservation and Maintenance of Living Fungi, 2nd Edition

Main Description
This second edition has been extended to include new information and developments in the preservation of fungi but maintains the coverage of methodology as presented in the first edition published in 1983.
The book enables readers to select suitable preservation procedures for their purposes, gives information on the growth and maintenance of fungi and provides the background to manage a collection of microorganisms both safely and effectively. The methods described are those in operation or experimented upon at IMI, and cover the simple to the more complex techniques. The methods listed are of use in all situations where living cultures of fungi are required, from teaching and research to industry and technology.

Main Contents
Foreword
Microbial resource collections: aims, management and information
• Collection management
• Acquisition of strains
• Accession
• Preservation and storage
• Culture properties
• Distribution
• Information
Continuous growth and adaptations for storage
• Growth
• Methods of culture maintenance
Sub-culturing
Storage under mineral oil
Water storage
• Summary of maintenance by growth techniques
Drying and freeze-drying
• Drying
• Silica gel storage
• Soil storage
• Freeze-drying
• Factors affecting survival in freeze-drying
Cryopreservation
• Method
• Optimization of preservation conditions
• Selection of preservation techniques
• Recommended methods of preservation for taxonomic groups
• Selection of preservation technique based upon collection requirements
• Comparison of methods available
• Suitability of the techniques for fungi
• Summary
Special techniques and procedures
• Cleaning and mite prevention
• Discarding cultures
• Cryogenic light microscopy
• Means of achieving reproducible cooling rates