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Culture inocula released from the collection consists of either "whole" inoculum (homogenized pot cultures contents), extracted and washed spores shipped in vials containing sterile sand, or preserved spores. The number of releases is graphed in the figure below. The most dramatic volume released occurred in 1994, in partbecause the collection received a flurry of requests for bulk inoculum for researchers who did not have facilities or time to prepare inoculum for experiments. The number of releases since 1995 does not reflect the same demand, but rather reflects smaller requests by researchers-at-large (generally 2-3 cultures in one order). Since 1998, there has been an increase in requests for extracted and cleaned spores for molecular studies (750-1000 spores/vial). A large increase in requests occurred in 2006, due mainly to a few labs conducting molecular studies looking at taxonomic or isolate diversity on regional to global scales. We were very excited by this trend, as it shows the culture collection finally is being utilized as envisioned more than a decade ago.
