Secretary: A. R. Burgaz Moreno, Madrid
Members: A. Crespo, Madrid
M. Grube, Graz
A. Guttová, Bratislava
N. Hladún, Bacelona
D. L. Hawksworth, Madrid/London
V. John, Bad Dürkheim
X. Llimona, Barcelona
I. Martínez, Madrid
H. Mayrhofer, Graz
L. Muggia, Graz
V. J. Rico, Madrid
M. Seaward, Bradford
C. Scheidegger, Birmensdorf
Following the main conclusions of the XIV Optima Meeting (Palermo, 2013) to complete poorly known areas of the Mediterranean countries has support these activities:
- Lichenological Excursion to Armenia (15-23 June, 2015) organised by Arsen Gasparyan to collect lichens in the Khosrov Forest State Reserve, Aragats mountain, and visit the National parks: “Sevan Lake” and “Dilijan”. Eleven international lichenologists participated on it.
- To stimulate the revision of specific different genera growing in the Mediterranean region searching financial support. Into this line the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness give to Ana Rosa Burgaz the Project CGL2013-41839-P “Study of the Cladoniaceae familiy in the Eurasiatic Mediterranean area” for a period Nov-2014 until Nov-2017.
With this Project I have been collecting Cladonia specimens in Croatia during 14-24 March 2015; NE of Greece during 26th April-3 May 2015 and Hungary 19-27 May 2015.
In Georgia during 16-26 August 2015 some field recollections and reidentifications of the Tbilisi’s lichen herbarium were done in collaboration with Teuvo Ahti (Helsinki).
Helmut Mayrhofer has published catalogues of the diversity of lichenized and lichenicolous fungi of the Albanian Alps of Kosovo and Montenegro; Macedonia (FYROM) and Slovenia.
- Strasser, E. A., Hafellner, J., Stešević, D., Geci, F. & Mayrhofer, H. 2015. Lichenized and lichenicolous fungi from the Albanian Alps (Kosovo, Montenegro). Herzogia 28: 520-544).
- Mayrhofer, H., Rohrer, A. & Bilovitz, P. O. 2013. Catalogue of the lichenized and lichenicolous fungi of Macedonia (FYROM). – Phyton (Horn, Austria) 53(1): 23–72.
- Mayrhofer, H. & Coppins, B. J. 2013. Remarkable records of lichenized fungi from Slovenia. – Herzogia 26: 201–206.
Another paper is in press:
Mayrhofer, H., Czeh, D., Kobald, E.-M. & Bilovitz, P. O. 2016. Catalogue of the lichenized and lichenicolous fungi of Kosovo. – Herzogia 29: in press.
In addition we are still working on a catalogue of Croatia. Branka Knežević from Montenegro has started to prepare an updated catalogue of Montenegro with localities in co-operation with me (Helmut Mayrhofer).
- Field work: Lucia Muggia and Alexander Rohrer carried out field work in the mountains of northern Greece.
- During the XII OPTIMA Iter to Tunisia, held during the period 24 March – 4 April 2014, Anna Guttová (Institute of Botany SAS, Bratislava) collected lichen material from three regions of Northern Tunisia.
-Volker John in the past three years worked on a bibliography, checklist and distribution maps of the lichens in Turkey. A bibliographic checklist of Turkish lichens will be published this year (2016). With the help of Ayşen Türk as a coauthor we will present a version in Turkish language. As a special contribution this list will also include Turkish Names for all the lichens and lichenicolous fungi known from Turkey.
In 2014 a group of Turkish lichenologists and myself started the work on a lichen flora of Turkey. This illustrated flora will include the distribution maps mentioned above and is scheduled to be published in parts.