New to Nature No 102: Lobariella sipmanii

A beautiful, newly discovered lichen Colombia is the result of a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a photosynthetic algae

A new species of lichen growing in the bottom of the stems halfway and small trunks

Diplostephium revolutum

, compounds, Bogota, Colombia . This is only the second case of its kind with a symbiont cyanobacteria (a bacterium that obtains its energy through photosynthesis), but is distinct from all other species in many ways, including its highly mottled and stained surface.

Although this is a great new find is perhaps most notable for the context in which it is described. taxonomy for 250 years has relied heavily on a researcher and a model disciple individually, but botanists have been pioneers in the taxonomy of collaboration in plant large-scale projects, a few decades more sustainable, bringing together various taxonomic experts to write treatment of all species found in a particular country or region. In recent years, several major projects were discussed in a broad base of the community, as the mounting shaft of life projects, resolve phylogenetic relationships of major lineages, such as fungi and biodiversity inventory projects global describe thousands of species in a few years in efforts to raise the status of poorly known taxa.

about 70,000 known species of fungi, including perhaps 20,000 species are lichenised. Recent estimates of the total number of living species of fungi vary widely, from 1.5 to 5.1 million. Whatever the number, we are very far from being something like the knowledge of the diversity of fungi or lichens despite its extremely important role in ecosystem functions and as indicators of environmental change.

• Mycologists beginning to wonder if the recent success in studies of large-scale collaboration can be successfully used as a model to accelerate the discovery and description of the species.
Lobariella sipmanii

is one of the 100 newly described species of mushrooms lichenised published in a document 102 authors from 35 countries. Although taxonomic revisions and monographs compare all known genus or higher taxon species, no matter where on Earth you are, and current knowledge of all taxa of flora located in a defined geographic area, this work is a hybrid of all kinds. 100 new species come from 37 countries and representing 33 different families of fungi. Organized by Thorsten H Lumbsch and Robert Lucking Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, this is a big step in order to accelerate the descriptive taxonomy. Whether and how the quality of individual traditional school work can be maintained in this type of projects in the community is one of the great challenges of the 21st century biology, but clearly there is great promise in teamwork.

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