Development of AI Species Identifier for the Hebeloma Project Database

By Henry Beker

Sunday, June 12 at 2 PM

Topic.  The Hebeloma project has been evolving for over 20 years. The database that started in 2003 now has over 10,000 collections, from around the world, with not only metadata but also morphological descriptions and photographs, both macroscopic and microscopic, as well as molecular data including at least an ITS sequence. Included within this set of collections are almost all types worldwide.

The next phase of the Hebeloma project has been to develop a website, which updates as the database updates. This website, which will be launched on July 1, 2022, and will include up-to-date species descriptions for all published Hebeloma species, worldwide, that are recognized as “‘current”.

A key part of the Hebeloma website is the species identifier tool. The user inputs a small number of characteristics and the tool promptly returns the most likely species represented, ranked by probability. Henry will present the machine-learning techniques behind the tool, and the results it has had in testing to date.

The descriptions reflect the collections of each species on the database. It also has a number of tools available to the user. For example, a user may explore those species with similar habitat preferences, or those from a particular biogeographic area. A user is also able to compare a range of characteristics of different species of Hebeloma.

What’s a Hebeloma: 

See Kuo http://www.mushroomexpert.com/hebeloma.html: “a large, confusing genus of brown-spored, gilled mushrooms that range considerably in their physical features.  The species . . . can be found in most woodland ecosystems on our continent. . . , Identification of species in Hebeloma is tedious, and microscopic study of specimens is required . . . Beyond a few of the well known "field guide species" (which are actually species groups), most of the genus consists of groups of frustratingly similar mushrooms.” 

Speaker.  Henry J. Beker is a professor and Honorary Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London.  Henry has served on the council of the British Mycological Society and is currently a Scientific Collaborator with Botanic Garden, Meise.

In the early 1990s Henry became interested in mycology.  In 2000 he and Jan Vesterholt formed a partnership working on the genus Hebeloma.  Since 2005 his mycological research has been focused solely on Hebeloma.  In 2016 he and  Ursula Eberhardt) published Fungi Europaei 14, a monograph on Hebeloma in Europe. Since then, the team have been working on Hebeloma worldwide and are in the process of publishing a series of papers on the Hebeloma of North America.

Zoom link available to MAW members on Consortium Presentations.