The ARS Culture Collection is one of the largest public collections of microorganisms in the world, containing approximately 93,000 strains of bacteria and fungi. The collection is split into subcollections of molds, prokaryotes, and yeasts. In addition, the online catalog is searchable by genus, species, subvar type, and subspecies. The collection is housed within the Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research Unit at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois. The scientists and staff of the ARS Culture Collection conduct and facilitate microbiological research that advances agricultural production, food safety, public health, and economic development. These goals are pursued through in-house research that improves understanding and utilization of microbiological diversity and through efforts to enhance the value and accessibility of microbial accessions in the Agricultural Research Service Culture Collection.

NOTE: This resource, previously available at www.phytophthoradb.org, is no longer publicly accessible. This database aims to include Phytophthora collections throughout the world in order to create a global atlas of the diversity and distribution of Phytophthora species. Phytophthora, an oomycete plant pathogen, is more closely related to brown algae and diatoms than true fungi and has been placed in a separate kingdom, the Stramenopiles (Gunderson et al., 1987; Förster et al., 1990; Leipe et al., 1994). Due to their high virulence and ability to spread rapidly throughout the world, Phytophthora is one of the most important groups of plant pathogens. The destructive potential of Phytophthora diseases is well illustrated by late blight (P. infestans), which was responsible for the Irish potato famine and has again become globally problematic due to the introduction of new, fungicide-resistant lineages (Fry and Goodwin, 1997). Sudden oak death in the US (Rizzo et al., 2002) and diseases on ornamental plants in Europe (Werres et al., 2001), caused by P. ramorum, are examples of the threat to forest ecosystems and the nursery industry. Toward the goal of enhancing our ability to detect, diagnose, monitor, and manage Phytophthora diseases, we have been systematically cataloging genotypic and phenotypic data of Phytophthora spp. in a web-based database that can be easily accessed and utilized by the global community of plant health professionals. Although we are currently focusing on the genotypic characterization of the isolates archived in the World Phytophthora Collection (WPC; Phytophthora.ucr.edu) at UC-Riverside and in the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA), we plan to include Phytophthora collections throughout the world in order to create a global atlas of the diversity and distribution of Phytophthora species. This project has been mainly supported by the NRI-Plant Biosecurity program (2005-35605-15393 and 2008-55605-18773) and currently involves the following principal investigators, including Seogchan Kang, David Geiser, and Scott Isard (Penn State), Mike Coffey (UC-Riverside), Joe Russo (ZedX, Inc.), Kelly Ivors (NC State), Frank Martin and Nik Grunwald (USDA-ARS). Grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (ME442316 and ME 445580) and a cooperative agreement with USDA-ARS (59-1920-3-304) have also been used to support parts of this project. Partially supported by Grant from the USDA-AFRI Plant Biosecurity program supported the establishment and improvement of the PD (2005-35605-15393 and 2008-55605-18773).