Lichen Collections Research Articles

Noteworthy Collections of Lichens and Lichenicolous Fungi from Piedmont Rocky River Ecosystems in Central North Carolina, USA

Noteworthy Collections of Lichens and Lichenicolous Fungi from Piedmont Rocky River Ecosystems in Central North Carolina, USA

The dataset of the CLU lichen herbarium (Calabria, Italy).

Calabria, the southernmost tip of the Italian Peninsula, is a biogeographically very interesting region for lichenologists, characterised by the abundance of oceanic and suboceanic species with subtropical affinities, but also by the presence of the southernmost outposts of several boreal species on the highest peaks. The lichen biota of Calabria, which began to be intensively studied only from the 1980s, hosts more than 1000 infrageneric taxa. The lichen herbarium of the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria (CLU) is the most relevant lichen collection from this region. It was established in 1985 and it presently includes 16926 specimens, most of which were collected in Calabria, although there are also several specimens from other parts of Italy and from abroad. This dataset contains 16926 records of lichens for a total of 1316 species. Of the 15219 georeferenced specimens, 10254 were collected in Calabria, while 4965 in other administrative regions of Italy. The dataset is available through GBIF, as well as in ITALIC, the Information System of Italian Lichens.

Lithuanian lichens and lichenicolous fungi in the herbaria of the University of Tartu (Estonia) and the University of Latvia

Herbarium collections are particularly significant in countries where systematic studies of specific taxonomic groups have not been carried out, such as in the case of lichens in Lithuania. Collections prior to the 1990s are scarce, so all historical material is of great value. This paper presents the results of a study of lichen collections in the herbaria of the University of Tartu (TU) and the University of Latvia (RIG). A total of 425 herbarium envelopes (84 RIG and 341 TU) were examined. A total of 170 species were identified, including 157 lichen species, 12 lichenicolous and one non-lichenized saprobic fungi species. Nine lichen species were identified from envelopes that did not indicate the exact location except for the country (Lithuania). Two lichenicolous fungi, Endococcus nanellus and Stigmidium lecidellae, are new records for the country.

Лишайники и лихенофильные грибы северо-западной части Краснознаменского округа Калининградской области

This article is dedicated to the study of lichen biota as part of the research and conservation of biodiversity in the Kaliningrad region. Biological studies of little-known territories are a crucial component of the ecologically oriented development of the Kaliningrad region, especially for areas with heavily transformed landscapes. Expanding the understanding of the diversity and distribution of lichens plays an important role in nature conservation and supporting the biodiversity of the Kaliningrad region. The aim of the study was to examine the lichen biota of the northwestern part of the Krasnoznamensk municipal district (part of the Sheshupe ancient alluvial plain). This is the first such study for the Krasnoznamensk district. Field research was conducted in the vicinity of the western part of the Neman forest and the Velikoe bog in 2022 and 2023. Laboratory processing of the collected materials with species identification was carried out using standard methods. The collected field materials significantly enriched the lichen collection of the KLGU herbarium with new specimens. As a result of the study, one hundred and five species of lichens and lichenicolous fungi were identified for the northwestern part of the Krasnoznamensk district, eighty-two of which are reported for the first time for the district. Among the discovered species are rare lichens of the Kaliningrad region, as well as indicator species of minimally disturbed and old-growth forest communities. These data make a significant contribution to the understanding of lichens in the Kaliningrad region, filling long-standing gaps in lichen biota research in the area. Consequently, the number of known taxa in the lichen biota of the Krasnoznamensk district increased to one hundred and thirty-one species. Based on our results, further study of the lichen biota of the Krasnoznamensk district appears promising.

On a lichen collection from the summit of Glittertinden (Norway, Oppland / Innlandet) – base line data for a high mountain top

A set of 44 taxa of lichenized fungi and 5 species of lichenicolous fungi was gathered in 1984 in the summit area of the mountain Glittertinden, the second highest mountain in Scandinavia. The sampled species include several high alpine taxa known as members of well-established alpine lichen communities but only few pioneer species indicating that the investigated rocks had already been ice-free for a long time. The local flora is compared to that reported from Scandinavia’s highest mountain, Galdhøpiggen, by the late Gunnar Degelius in the 1940s. With the continuing melting of the local ice cap on the summit of Glittertinden, biota will face profoundly changed environmental conditions with much additional substrate ready to be colonized in the near future.

The Temporal Variation of Secondary Metabolites in the Mycobiont Culture and Thallus of Parmelina carporrhizans and Parmelina quercina Analyzed using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Lichens are composite organisms that produce a wide variety of secondary metabolites; many of the compounds have a high potential as bioactive compounds. The major limitations of using bioactive compounds from lichens is their slow growth rate and the damage to environmental populations caused by massive collection. The alternative to the massive collection of lichens in the field is their culture under laboratory conditions. We chose two related lichen species of Parmeliaceae that produce similar metabolites and isolated from spores in cultures placed under axenic conditions for over 550 days. From these cultures, we sampled 35 mg of each species from different culture media at two sampling times. The samples were analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to detect and identify major compounds. We found no differences in the metabolites produced within the species in comparisons between different culture media. Our results show that the mycobiont cultures produced different secondary metabolites than those found in natural lichen thalli. Moreover, different secondary metabolites between species and different metabolites over time were observed. We conclude that mycobiont cultures are a promising alternative for determining bioactive compounds and enhancing the efficiency of growth and production. These could be a good option for eco-friendly metabolite production.

Lichens from the Colombian Amazon: 666 Taxa Including 28 new Species and 157 New Country Records Document an Extraordinary Diversity

In this study, we revised the lichen collection at the Herbario Amazonico Colombiano (coah) in Bogotá, Colombia. The collection has a total of nearly 2,400 specimens, with some duplicates in the Herbario Nacional (col) and in the herbarium of the Botanic Garden in Berlin (b). The revision of 1,861 specimens revealed 574 species in 142 genera and 44 families, among which there are 28 species new to science and seven new combinations. Previously, 324 species had been reported from the Colombian Amazon, and our revision resulted in a new total of 666 species, more than doubling the previous number. All 666 species are enumerated here in the first comprehensive checklist of lichens from the Colombian Amazon. A total of 157 new country records (53 already reported in the new Catalogue of Fungi of Colombia) increase the number of lichens known from Colombia to 2,827. The following species are described as new: Allographa exuens, differing from A. argentata by the lirellae with the corticiform layer soon flaking off and exposing the black labia, the only finely inspersed hymenium, and the narrower ascospores; A. guainiae, differing from Graphis syzygii in the prominent ascomata with lateral thalline margin and whitish thallus remnants between the striae; A. labiata, differing from A. immersa in the prominent lirellae with conspicuous, entire, exposed labia, an inspersed hymenium, longer ascospores, and stictic acid as secondary compound; A. lichexanthonica, differing from A. sitiana in producing lichexanthone; A. sessilis, differing from A. contortuplicata in the muriform ascospores; A. suprainspersata, differing from A. angustata in the very thin thalline cover of the ascomata and the apically inspersed hymenium; Astrothelium bireagens, differing from A. cinnamomeum by the broader, apically flattened perithecia covered by a thin, ferruginous-red, K+ deep purple pruina and internally with an ochraceous-yellow, K+ deep yellow pigment; A. stromatolucidum, differing from A. neovariolosum in the distinctly pseudostromatic ascomata; Carbacanthographis submultiseptata, differing from C. multiseptata in the narrower ascospores and the indistinct periphysoids; Chapsa inconspicua, differing from C. angustispora in the smooth to uneven versus farinose thallus and in the much shorter ascospores; Coenogonium velutinellum, differing from C. pineti in the finely velvety, rather thick thallus composed of irregular to erect, densely packed algal threads covered by a thin pseudocortex; Fellhanera naevioides, differing from F. naevia in the finely dispersed, minutely crenulate thallus and the blackish apothecia; Fissurina sipmanii, differing from F. amazonica in the shorter and broader, slightly gaping, somewhat chroodiscoid ascomata, and the amyloid ascospores; Glyphis lirellizans, differing from Glyphis substriatula in the erumpent vs. prominent lirellae with lateral thalline margin and the exposed disc; Graphis papillifera, differing from G. stellata in the lirellae lacking a thalline margin, very elongate and irregularly to radiately branched and not in stellate clusters, and in the 5-septate ascospores; G. pseudoglyphis, differing from Graphis stellata in the non-verrucose thallus, the branched lirellae which do not, however, form stellate clusters, and the shorter ascospores; Malmidea flavimarginata, differing from M. bacidinoides in the pale yellow, K+ deep yellow medulla and yellow, K+ deep yellow excipular crystals, as well as the smaller ascospores; M. isidiopiperina, differing from M. taytayensis in the smaller ascospores; M. papillitrailiana, differing from M. trailiana in the papillose apothecial margins; Myriotrema araracuarense, differing from Myriotrema muluense in the non-annulate pores of the apothecia and in the longer ascospores; Ocellularia areolata, differing from Ocellularia rhicnoporoides in the pigmented medulla and the larger, more prominent apothecia with completely carbonized excipulum; O. caquetensis, differing from Ocellularia rotundifumosa in the absence of a columella; O. inspersipallens, differing from O. viridipallens in the inspersed hymenium and the 5–7-septate ascospores; O. rufocinctoides, differing from O. rufocincta in the thallus lacking large and irregular crystal clusters, in the more prominent apothecia and in the smaller ascospores; O. sipmanii, differing from Ocellularia abbayesiana in the smaller, 3-septate ascospores; Pseudopyrenula daironii, differing from all other species of the genus in the aggregate perithecia with shared ostiole and the internal orange-red pigment granules lining the perithecial wall; Pyrenula asymmetrica, differing from Pyrenula papilligera in the longer, almost rectangular ascospores; and Redingeria pseudostromatica, differing from other species in the genus in the pseudostromatic ascomata with small, rounded apothecia, in combination with 1-septate ascospores. In addition, the following seven new combinations are proposed: Bacidina cyanophila (≡ Bacidina simplex var. cyanophila), Malmidea sorediifera (≡ Lecanora sorediifera), Ocellularia fuscescens (≡ Thelotrema fuscescens), Phaeographis cymbegrapha (≡ Graphis cymbegrapha; = Phaeographis amazonica Staiger], Polyblastidium flavosquamosum (≡ Heterodermia flavosquamosa), Polyblastidium lamelligerum (≡ Parmelia lamelligera), and Polyblastidium rottboellii (≡ Anaptychia hypoleuca var. rottboellii).

Collections of Arctic Plants, Lichens, and Fungi in the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway

The Arctic has been, and is, an area of focus for the botanical and fungal (lichenized fungi included) collections at the Natural History Museum of Oslo. These collections house more than 233,000 unique Arctic specimens, the oldest dating back more than two centuries. The vascular plants account for 63 percent, lichens 30 percent, and fungi 7 percent. The Arctic collections have a circumpolar representation with emphasis on mainland Norway (48 percent) and Svalbard (13 percent), followed by Arctic America (10 percent), Greenland (9 percent), and Arctic Russia (8 percent). The Oslo herbarium and fungarium house collections from important polar expeditions like Fram-2, Gjøa, and Maud, but also of many expeditions where collecting biological specimens was the main purpose. The number of new collections was highest in the decades 1930 to 1939 and 2000 to 2009 with each around 35,000 new specimens. In the 1990s, a DNA Bank was established for DNA extracts and tissue samples, and it houses today 22,879 Arctic accessions of fungi, lichens, and plants. In times of climatic change and a tense geopolitical situation, the herbarium and fungarium at NHM-Oslo represent an invaluable source for biological information about the Arctic. We welcome the use of our collections for research-, nature management-, and teaching purposes.

Lichen substances are more important for photoprotection in sun than shade collections of lichens from the same species

Photosynthetic organisms possess a great diversity of mechanisms to protect themselves from the potentially stressful effects of high PAR (photosynthetically active radiation). A distinctive response to longer term exposure to high levels of PAR in lichens is the synthesis of a variety of substances in the upper cortex that can protect photobionts from photoinhibition. In the present study, lichen substances were removed harmlessly from lichens using the “acetone rinsing” method. This enabled us to compare the importance of the substances in photoprotection in sun and shade collections of four species of Afromontane lichens. While all species normally grow in more exposed microhabitats, it is easy to make collections of more shaded thalli. Using chlorophyll fluorescence, we show that collections of lichens from sunny microhabitats have higher tolerance to photoinhibition than those from shaded locations. Furthermore, removal of lichen substances increases sensitivity to photoinhibition, suggesting that even although colorless, they have a role in protecting against high PAR. Sensitivity was increased much more in sun than shade collections, implying that substances play a greater role in photoprotection in lichens from sunny microhabitats. Nevertheless, following the removal of lichen substances, most sun collections still possess higher tolerance to photoinhibition than shade collections. Therefore, the additional tolerance of sun collections appears derive from a combination of both lichen substances and other, probably more biochemical tolerance mechanisms.

The Italian lichens dataset from the TSB herbarium (University of Trieste).

The "Herbarium Universitatis Tergestinae" (TSB), with a total of ca. 50,000 specimens, includes the largest modern collection of lichens in Italy, with 25,796 samples collected from all over the country since 1984, representing 74% of all taxa known to occur in Italy. Almost all specimens have been georeferenced "a posteriori". The dataset is available through GBIF, as well as in ITALIC, the Information System of Italian Lichens. The TSB Herbarium hosts the largest modern lichen collection in Italy, with a total of ca. 50,000 specimens. This dataset contains all of the 25,796 specimens collected within the administrative borders of Italy. Amongst them, 98% are georeferenced and 87% have the date of collection. The dataset includes several type specimens (isotypes and holotypes) and exsiccata.

The lichen collection from Angola and Mozambique in COI (Coimbra, Portugal)

The importance of the COI lichen herbarium is increased by the results shown here. Forty-seven taxa are reported from Africa, forty-three from Angola and seven from Mozambique. Four species are new to Africa, 30 to Angola and 3 to Mozambique. Two species are described as new to science: Parmotrema carballalianum and Sclerococcum parmotrematis, a lichenicolous fungus living on the former. A key to all known lichenicolous species of Sclerococcum growing on Parmelia s.l. is provided.

Taxonomic Curation in a Multi-taxa Symbiota Portal

Symbiota is an open-source software that allows the creation of online portals for accessing, managing, and mobilizing biodiversity data (Gries et al. 2014, Symbiota Support Hub 2021). Most of the portals are focused on communities with specific taxonomic interests, which often allows the construction of specialized taxonomic thesauri by portal managers (Gilbert et al. 2020, Pearson 2021a). A portal dedicated to the full range of collections in one country (Portal de Biodiversidad de Guatemala 2022) has represented an interesting challenge for taxonomic management. The Guatemala Biodiversity portal currently allows the digitization and active management of 29 natural history collections in this country, including collections of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, fungi, lichens, and fossils. Additionally, two institutional observation collections are live managed within the portal (Orellana et al. 2022). This brings up the need to have a suitable taxonomic thesaurus that serves all the collection managers involved. Similar to other Symbiota portals, the Guatemala Biodiversity portal facilitates the incorporation of external catalogs such as Catalog of Life (Bánki et al. 2022), and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board 2022), resources which could easily constitute the base of the taxonomic thesaurus of the portal. However, due to the regional focus of this site, it is not ideal to add all the species available in these virtual catalogs. A partial solution has been importing snapshot collections with Guatemalan records from different Symbiota portals, or from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org 2022). This approach takes advantage of the specimens identified by specialists in different collections around the world, and the taxonomic cleaning tools available in Symbiota portals (Pearson 2021b) allow the curation of the scientific names. Nevertheless, these automated tools are often not enough to maintain the taxonomic thesaurus in understudied regions, such as Guatemala, and the manual curation of species names is still necessary. The curation of the taxonomic thesaurus in this portal is a work in progress, and we are achieving this with the creation of curated checklists within the portal (Orellana 2022, Pearson and Walker 2021), with the incorporation of names in published catalogs (Cano 2006, Cano and Schuster 2012, Camacho et al. 2022), and with the curation of the available names according to institutional catalogs (CECON 2022). Additional information about the conservation status of the species is being added to the taxon profile pages, attaching recent data provided by the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and publications by local researchers (IUCN 2021, Elías et al. 2022). The availability of a regional curated taxonomic thesaurus in the Guatemala Biodiversity portal is still limited and restricted to groups like vertebrates and certain groups of insects, yet this online resource is useful for researchers who are working in local collections or are compiling information to publish new catalogs and checklists for Guatemala. Continuing with the improvement of this taxonomic resource is necessary not only to advance the knowledge of the biodiversity of Guatemala but to aggregate this information into relevant global catalogs.

Exploration of Marine Lichenized Fungi as Bioindicators of Coastal Ocean Pollution in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area

This preliminary exploration of marine lichenized fungi (lichens) as bioindicators of water pollution examined the distribution of intertidal lichen communities in the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area with respect to recorded pollution throughout the harbor. We found significant negative associations between pollution measurements and the health of the lichen community based on cover and species richness. We also observed significant differences in species composition between areas of higher pollution and areas of lower pollution, though not enough data are available to establish the pollution sensitivity or tolerance of individual species. We note that difficulties in the collection and identification of marine lichens hamper efforts to use them broadly as bioindicators. This study suggests that marine lichens could prove useful as bioindicators, but more research is needed to understand the differential effects of pollution on individual species as well as to establish practical procedures both for quantifying marine lichen community health and for widespread bioindication using marine lichens. Finally, one species collected during this study, Verrucaria ceuthocarpa, represents a first report for the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

Prosthetic Symbiosis

Prosthetic Symbiosis

MHA Herbarium: Collections of mosses from Yana-Indigirka Region, Yakutia, Russia.

BackgroundThe Skvortsov Herbarium of the Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden, Russian Academy of Sciences (MHA) in the 1945-1980s dealt with vascular plants and only scattered occasional collections of bryophytes and lichens were accumulated there without special arrangement. Since the late 1980s, the bryophyte studies in the MHA Herbarium became permanent and several projects were started since then, including the currently conducted “Moss Flora of Russia”. There are many white spots on the map of bryophyte exploration of Russia, but one of the most conspicuous was Yakutia, the largest administrative unit of Russia, covering 3,081,000 km2. Yana-Indigirka Region, originally defined as a floristic region, includes Verkhoyansky Range and some smaller adjacent mountain areas. It is the largest amongst the bryofloristic regions in Russia, but exploration of its territory, which is difficult to access, remains far from complete.New informationSeveral expeditions of the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Main Botanical Garden, Russian Academy of Sciences in 2000-2018 yielded in many bryophyte specimens, partly published in a number of papers. This dataset comprehensively represents the diversity of mosses of the Region. It includes 7,738 records of moss specimens preserved in the MHA Herbarium.

Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons extracted from lichens by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Lichens are well-known biomonitors for semi-volatile pollutants, due to their ability to absorb and retain different chemical compounds such as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), directly linked to levels in the atmosphere. Based on that, this paper proposes an analytical method capable of quantifying 16 EPA-PAHs from lichens found in an intertropical zone, as a natural alternative to typical capture methods, with the aim of monitoring atmospheres polluted by toxic compounds. An analytical protocol, including sample pre-treatment, followed by ultrasound extraction, clean-up in a chromatographic column, concentration and quantification by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) using Selective Ion Monitoring has been developed. Additionally, a set of guidelines on lichen collection and sample handling is given, in order to achieve representative samples.•Limits of quantification (LOQ) and detection (LOD) varied from 2.0 to 16 µg/L and 1.0 to 5.0 µg/L, respectively. Calibration curves had correlation coefficients higher than 0.99 in all cases.•Validation of the method for determining PAHs concentration associated to 30 lichen samples collected along two roads, with high and low traffic volumes was carried out.•The method showed good performance according to the sources of PAHs, traffic patterns and gradient in roads.

Lichen bioindicators of nitrogen and sulfur deposition in dry forests of Utah and New Mexico, USA

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) deposition can negatively affect ecosystem functions and lichen biomonitors can be a cost-effective way to monitor air pollution exposure across the landscape. Interior dry forests of the southwestern United States face increasing development pressures; however, this region differs from others with well-developed biomonitoring programs in having drier climates and a greater fraction of deposition delivered in dry forms. We measured throughfall N and S deposition at 12 sites in Utah and 10 in New Mexico and co-located collection of 6 lichen species. Throughfall N deposition ranged from 0.76 to 6.96 kg/ha/year and S deposition from 0.57 to 1.44 kg/ha/year with elevated levels near human development that were not predicted by commonly used simulation models. Throughfall N was 4.6 and 1.6 times higher in summer compared with fall-spring in Utah and New Mexico and S deposition was 3.9 and 1.8 times higher in summer. Lichen N and S concentrations ranged from 0.97 to 2.7% and 0.09 to 0.33%. Replicate samples within plots showed high variability in N and S concentrations with within-plot coefficients of variation for N ranging between 5 and 10% and for S between 7 and 15%. In Utah, N and S concentrations in lichen species were correlated with each other in most cases, with R2 ranging from 0.52 to 0.85. N concentrations in Melanohalea exasperatula and Melanohalea subolivacea could be correlated with average annual throughfall N deposition in Utah (R2 = 0.58 and 0.31). Those relationships were improved by focusing on deposition in fall-spring prior to lichen sampling in Utah (R2 for M. exasperatula, M. subolivacea, and X. montana = 0.59, 0.42, and 0.28). In New Mexico, lichens exhibited greater coefficients of variability within plots than between plots and could not be correlated with throughfall N deposition. In neither study area was S correlated between lichens and throughfall deposition, which may be the result of low S deposition over a narrow deposition range or complex lichen assimilation of S. Lichen biomonitoring for N deposition in the region shows promise, but could potentially be improved by sampling more thalli to reduce within-plot variability, repeated lichen collection synchronized with throughfall changeouts to explore temporal variability, and washing lichen collections to distinguish N and S that has been incorporated by the thalli from dry deposition that may accumulate on lichen surfaces.

In memoriam Klára Verseghy (1930–2020)

Dr Klára Verseghy (1930–2020), a student of the famous Hungarian lichenologist Ödön Szatala, was working as the curator of the lichen collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest between 1958 and 1985. She did a great development in the lichen herbarium arranging and registering the big collections of F. Fóriss, V. Gyelnik and Ö. Szatala in the Zahlbruckner’s system. Separating the type specimens she prepared also the type catalogue of the lichen collection in 1964. Approximately 5,000 lichen specimens were collected by herself in several areas of Hungary (e.g. Bakony Mts, Hortobágy, Kiskunság, Praenoricum, Vendvidék, Villány Mts, Zemplén Mts) and ca 1,500 specimens from other countries (e.g. Finland, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine). She published more than a hundred scientific and popular papers mainly on floristics, taxonomy, plant physiology and bioindication. Altogether 46 new taxa (19 species, 27 varieties and forms) and 69 new combinations were described by her. Following her taxonomic revisions (Caloplaca, Gasparrinia, Ochrolechia, Squamaria, Squamarina spp.) and floristical studies she prepared her main work “Magyarország zuzmóflórájának kézikönyve (The handbook of the Hungarian lichen flora)” in 1994. Her publications (106, including 23 in popular subject), her revisions and thousands of lichen specimens, the genus Verseghya and two species, Verseghya klarae and Verseghya thysanophora named after her preserve her memories.

Accelerating Digitisation of Biological Collections: the Coimbra Herbarium case study

Hebaria are biological collections of preserved plants, algae, fungi and lichens used for scientific purposes. Fast communication and information exchange are fundamental to accelerate the investigation on biodiversity. The major world herbaria are concentrating efforts to digitise their collections and making available the information online. Over the last decade, the Herbarium of the University of Coimbra (COI – acronym in Index Herbariorum) has made efforts to make available online the information of its plant collection of c. 800,000 specimens (http://coicatalogue.uc.pt). However, only c. 10% is processed to this date, in part due to the slowness of the methods generally used in herbaria. This work is a contribution to accelerating the digitising process, both by improving digitising procedures and by involving citizens in populating COI database. To accomplish that, a new workflow was developed to automatically create records in the database from batches of digital images with minimum information, plus a collaborative platform was developed to allow the transcription of specimen labels from digital images in a web environment. Creating records from the images benefits from the physical organisation of the herbarium, with specimens grouped in taxon folders. This way, when taking pictures of a set of specimens, it is possible to store them in folders with the name of the taxon. A script will then read the name of the folder and check in the database if each ranking of the taxon exists on the taxon tree (genus, species, infraspecific ranks), and in case it does not, it creates one, and then it creates a record based on each of the specimens inside that folder assigning a determination to it. The collaborative application (http://coicatalogue.uc.pt/collaborative) has innovative features, such as displaying forms sequentially, revealing only one field at a time (Fig. 1). But the most differentiating feature is probably the process of validation for submitted values. Registered users are included under a category, according to their contribution history. Contributors can be upgraded to the next level when they submit a certain number of validated fields. Therefore, there is a progression based on proficiency, allowing users to become familiar with the specimen information system as they use the platform and, simultaneously, it attributes a confidence level to users. This can be used to validate data, assigning a confidence value to a submission, based on user status (points system). Validation of values submitted by users is obtained when the sum of points for a concurrent value meets a threshold, so a single answer from an expert user could be enough to get validation but would require five basic users submitting the same value to be accepted (Table 1). Although collateral, there is a major, and unique, advantage to this project. The collaborative application can be used as a tool to make corrections to the herbarium database, easily and directly online. This quickly improves the database as such effortless procedure increases this kind of contributions.

Three species of heterodermia recorded in Mongolia

Heterodermia hypoleuca (Ach.) Treis.,H. japonica (M. Sato) Swinscow & Krogand H. subascendens (Asahina) Trass. have been recorded for the first time in Mongolia. Data on substrates, habitats, distribution are listed for every species. Taxonomic comments and distinctive characters are provided for these species. The habitats are briefly described and the frequently associated species are listed. It is interesting to note that as a result of processing hundreds of herbarium collections of lichens, numerous new species were found in Mongolia. This means that there is still a substantial gap in the knowledge, especially about the lichen flora of remote corners of the country, which are numerous.