The identification of one or more species from either soils or preserved specimens is a difficult and often time-consuming task, regardless of the experience of the person doing the work.

• For species common to the collection, an identification takes a minimum of one hour to complete (involving extraction, slide preparation, examination, comparative study).
  
• For other species in which reference cultures are available, the time increases to 1-2 days to accommodate more extensive comparative analysis.
  
• For species not present in the collection, the time requirement is a minimum of 4 months because the germ plasm source must be passed through one culture cycle in our facility to obtain abundant healthy spores for examination and comparative study.

Identity of the dominant (or only) fungal species in a accessions will be provided free of charge to the contributor upon request. This request can be submitted at any time after the culture has gone through at least one propagation cycle and produced enough spores for a thorough evaluation. Identification of associated species will depend on amount of material and level of difficulty. Characterization and comparative analysis of undescribed species will be left to the discretion of the contributor. Any unique characteristics or biological properties discovered during the culture and examination of these species also will be available to the contributor. INVAM will not be involved in publication of new species descriptions unless specific written arrangements are made with the contributor.

Requests for identification of non-INVAM isolates will be honored if time permits, provided that the spores originated from pot/root cultures or are healthy spores from field-collected samples. Moreover, the spores must be submitted in the medium from which they originated. Extracted spores or slides will not be accepted because they compromise precision of our decision-making efforts. Efforts to identify a species are time-consuming and laborious. The cost of doing this work will be waived only under the following conditions: (1) an identification is not possible and (2) the sample is large enough and contains sufficient viable infectious propagules to establish a culture and be accessed in the collection. Under all other conditions, a fee for identification must be pre-paid: $10 per fungus for students, $20 per fungus for faculty or full-time researchers, $50 per fungus used or slated for commercial development.