1.1 Conservation of Unknown Genetic Diversity During the Domestication Process
The success of a newly cultivated strain depends on both economical and biological factors. There are two groups of biological factors: the first group relates to mushroom production and the second to mushroom consumption (edibility/toxicity, the nutritional and medicinal aspects, and appetency). Biological factors affecting the success of production depend on the environment and any methods to control it, and equally on genetic factors. These genetic factors depend on the intraspecific variability, of the genetic structure of the population, of epigenetic factors and genomic stability. At each step of the domestication process we have to make a choice and thus we make a genetic or even epigenetic selection: which field specimens to choose; from which part of the specimen to isolate; which isolate to choose, and later which subculture. There is some experimental knowledge guiding these decisions, however these are also species dependent.