Accession histories

Approximately 90% of the accessions in INVAM are stored as dried inoculum or are actively growing pot cultures, with the remaining 10% stored in liquid nitrogen.  We are not placing more accessions in liquid nitrogen because of the unpredictable variability in viability of stored material. At present, all accessions are recultured after 6 months to 1.5 years of storage (shortest: Gigaspora species, large dark-spored Scutellospora species, and some Glomus species; longest: some Glomus species and almost all Acaulospora species).

We routinely maintain over 600 liters of dried inoculum stored at 4^o C and have between 300-600 cultures actively growing at any given time.  Geographically, accessions in INVAM are dominated by those from North and South America (see figure below). However, holdings from Europe, Africa, and Asia have risen dramatically during the past few years. Germplasm originates from diverse habitats: (i) natural communities from arctic and boreal regions, deserts, salt marshes, wetlands, temperate and tropical grasslands, tropical and temperate forests, sand dunes, and disturbed minesoils, (ii) croplands, (iii) pastures, (iv) orchards and (v) nurseries.