Hi all,
I've been lurking for a while, really like the idea of this group. I've also been baking with my starter (purchased from some local German Baptists) for a bit more than a year now. I'm finally getting better at it.
Anyway, I ran across this that I thought might be interesting. They aren't collecting starters yet, but they have a lot of other successful projects and so I suspect this this won't just disappear:
http://robdunnlab.com/projects/sourdough
and here is the tagline:
"This project is a broad collaboration involving experts in the evolution of food microorganisms (Ben Wolfe, Tufts University), the ecology of microbes (Tad Fukami, Stanford/Natural History Museum of Denmark), human evolution (Peter C. Kjærgaard, Natural History Museum of Denmark), the ecology of life in homes (Rob Dunn, Natural History Museum of Denmark/NC State University), the interface of microbial cultures and art (Anne Madden, NC State University) among others."