Global Spore Sampling Project: a global, standardized dataset of airborne fungal DNA

The sampling of airborne spores with a cyclone sampler, and the sequencing of their DNA, have been suggested as an efficient and well-calibrated tool for surveying fungal diversity across various environments. These data originate from the Global Spore Sampling Project, comprising 2,768 samples collected during two years at 47 outdoor locations across the world.

Each sample represents fungal DNA extracted from 24 m3 of air. We applied a conservative bioinformatics pipeline that filtered out sequences that did not show strong evidence of representing a fungal species. The pipeline yielded 27,954 species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs).