IAL4 (Barcelona, 2-8 September 2000) I

IAL4 (Barcelona, 2-8 September 2000) II

First Russian Lichenological Field Meeting, 6-12 August 2000

ABLS Field Trip (10-14 August 2000)

TICS (Marburg, 13-19 August 2000)

Lichen Monitoring Workshop (Pembrokeshire, 16-23 August 2000)

Homage to Ernie Brodo (Ottawa, 10 November 2000)

about IAL

Reports

IAL4 (Barcelona, 2-8 September 2000)

As a student in Barcelona, I noticed the rumours about the forthcoming international symposium more than a year before it actually happened. Researchers and professors at the University started talking about the IAL4 meeting and became more and more excited while administration and bureaucracy was handed over to a professional symposium secretariat (AOPC). A particular issue for the organizers was how many grants could be given and to whom. Finally, a considerable number of qualified lichenologists from disadvantaged countries were able to participate.

For me and several reknown lichenologists, the meeting started with a pleasant field trip to NE-Spain. We were lucky to have the invaluable knowledge and affable company of Dr. Roux. Dr. Llimona's "technical stops" following abundant meals were unforgettable and some of the international guests learned a bit of Spanish in the valley of Nuria.

At the meeting, I was overwhelmed by the large amount of information which makes it difficult to pick out particular talks. As a taxonomist, I was mostly impressed by presentations that used the latest molecular techniques whilst not forgetting the classical base. I could understand that it must have been difficult to select the oral presentations from so many apparently interesting abstracts. There were extraordinary talks but it also seemed that due to the persisting language barrier, some other exciting posters were not accepted as oral contributions.

By the large number of oral sessions, too little attention was paid to the many posters, in my opinion. Many had invested a lot of energy in producing the posters and therefore it was a pity that they were compressed in such a narrow space. As a young lichenologist, I would also have appreciated listening to comprehensive plenary talks about progress in lichenology. Anyhow, it was a revealing experience to "discover" all the people who I only had known as authors names. I felt absolutely lucky having the opportunity to talk personally to those people working with the same groups of lichens than I, and to learn to become a part of the community and to establish future collaborations.

As a young lichenologist I was raised with internet and email as perfect communication media, but here I realized the important aspects of personal meetings. A social event like the dinner is also a great opportunity to appreciate the 'other' side of lichenologists. After a really fantastic meal in the Magnamarum, it great to see some of the organizers succumbing to a dancing fever. Dr Llimona and Dra Crespo gave us a master class in dancing salsa like true professionals. They were not the only ones, an endless list of lichenologists showed their talent and started to dance. Only the President did not step in and remained as an observer of the scene.

Ester Gaya, Barcelona

The Fourth IAL Symposium: "Progress and Problems in Lichenology at the Turn of the Millennium" took place in Barcelona in the first week of September 2000. The audience was international, "Akita, Bariloche, Barnaul, Canberra, Dunedin (N.Z.), Hobart, Honolulu, Mexico City, Novosibirsk, Taichung (Taiwan), Urumqi, Vladivostok" are names of more remote cities from which lichenologists travelled. The number of participants (271) was below that of the IAL3 in Salzburg, which, I guess, had to do with the considerably higher costs. It was striking to me how rapidly the family of lichenologists has grown in the meantime. Well acquainted faces, although many, are now dispersed within the large group of "new" ones, usually those of young and - this was easy to feel - enthusiastic participants. "International" was a term that surfaced again at the end of the meeting when a decision has to be made about the venue for IAL5: Tartu (Estonia) or Tempe (Arizona)? Should IAL meet once again in Europe? Although the majority vote was for Tartu, this should not be interpreted as a vote for "Europe yet again"; it was a vote in favour of a country which, due to the Iron Curtain, was excluded from the international community for so many decades.

Barcelona, with its famous university, housed us with perfect organisation and warm hospitality. It is a most fascinating and charming city; attractive enough, that a number of the participants missed some papers for a short visit to some of its remarkable sights. The Great Hall of the Department of Biology acted as an ideal forum for our big group. The lack of a suitable room for poster presentation was the only disadvantage; general discussions in the hall and not in front of the often highly informative posters did not work.

Posters and oral presentations covered a wide field of activities, reflected by numerous main blocks of presentations [in square brackets: the number of the papers followed by the number of the posters]: (a) Systematics of the mycobiont [10/28], (b) photobionts [6/7], (c) lichenicolous fungi [3/3], (d) molecular approaches to lichen phylogeny [11/5], (e) population and thallus individuality [5/4], (f) lichen diversity and biogeography, Mediterranean and xerophilous lichens [13/31], (g) storage and retrieval of lichen data: publications, herbaria, checklists, floras [7/7], (h) morphology and structure [9/11], (i) lichen dominated communities [2/3], (k) lichens as bioindicators of the stability and stress in ecosystems [4/21], (l) strategies for the sustainable management of lichen biodiversity [4/2], (m) ecology, ecophysiology and lichen physiology [22/36].

The oral presentations - each 15 minutes long - were presented in single sessions that resulted in very intense, and somewhat long, programs (preventing overdoses of the unlimited supply of fine and amiably served coffee during the breaks). These papers (some 95) - none preceded by some general lectures - provided an immense and colourful assemblage of information that is impossible to summarize in a few lines. Numerous interesting papers focused on taxonomy and phylogeny, and most of them were based upon molecular approaches. Not surprisingly, spectacular results came out of this lichenological 'corner'. For example, one paper concluded that whereas the Xanthoria fallax group might be excluded from the genus, Xanthoria s.str. the latter would have to accommodate a majority of the species of Caloplaca subgenus Gasparrinia, a conclusion that might have odd consequences in that Xanthoria will be best characterized by a base sequence (Søchting & Lutzoni). As a taxonomist, I found the papers on photobionts, most of which concentrated on morphology and structure, of general importance and I look forward to their publication.

The official Reception at the Catalan Government headquarters and the IAL Dinner at the well-known "El Petit Miau" restaurant at the harbour became social highlights of the Symposium. It was a lovely summer evening, when we walked through the beautiful old city towards the famous Gothic "Palau de la Generalitat" (parts of which date from the 14th century), where we had a reception in impressive festivity recalling Catalan grandezza.

The IAL Dinner was nicely arranged and became a most pleasant, memorable event. It culminated in the announcements of new recipients of the Acharius Medals and the winner of the Mason Hale Award. Long lasting, vivid and unanimous applause was given to the medal winners Nina Golubkova (in absentia), Teuvo Ahti and Georges Clauzade (in absentia), as well as to Jolanta Miadlikowska, for winning the Mason Hale award. Thanks to the committee, who mastered the most difficult job of choosing the award winners. However, this job was relatively minor compared with the giant task of organizing and implementing such a big meeting. Cordial thanks to Xavier Llimona and his numerous collaborators, and all the others, who helped to make the IAL4 such an interesting, pleasant, and great meeting!

Hannes Hertel, Munich

First Russian Lichenological Field Meeting (Khibiny mountains, 6-12 August 2000)

The First Russian Lichenological Field Meeting took place in the Khibiny Mountains (Murmansk Region) and was organized by the St Petersburg Naturalists Society, Russian Botanical Society and Universities of St Petersburg and Petrozavodsk. Forty-three participants from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Barnaul, Tomsk, Ekaterinburg, Perm, Kazan, Syktyvkar, Volgograd, Voronezh, Belgorod, Ufa, Sarov, Moscow, Kaliningrad, St.Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Apatity and Kirovsk participated in the Meeting. The organizers were also happy to welcome foreign participants from Vilnus (Lithuania) and Gdansk (Poland). The Field Meeting comprised of lichen excursions to various interesting spots in the Khibiny Mountains with a minisimposium with lectures and posters.

A first excursion was made to the Botanical Gardens protected territory on a mountain slope. All principal vegetation types of the Khibiny Mountains can be observed here within a one hour trip . The second field trip was to the Malaya Belaya (Small White) river valley in western Khibiny. Various types of forest vegetation, including old-growth forests, contain a rich epiphytic and epigaeic lichen flora, readily collected by participants. The third excursion to the Lovchorr Mountain slopes (southern Khibiny) was dedicated to different lichen tundras. The last two trips were made to Kunijok valley (central Khibiny) with spruce and birch mountain forests and a Southern Canyon (southern Khibiny), rich in epilithic lichens.

In a course of the minisimposium lectures on lichen synusia (by Lev Byazrov, Moscow), lichen geography (by Gennadi Urbanavichus, Tanhoj), aspects of lichen floristic studies (by Eugenia Muchnik, Voronezh), ecology of microlichens (by Jurga Motejunaite, Vilnus) and a Red Data Book compilation (by Viktor Petrov, Apatity) were given. Short workshops on botanical nomenclature, Peltigera, Bryoria and Hypogymnia were organized by Vitaly Kulakov (Volgograd), Alexei Zavarzin (St.Petersburg), Olga Petrova (Apatity) and Svetlana Tchabanenko (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). All participants displayed the results of their studies in a form of poster presentations and gave short talks about their projects. Abstracts of the lectures and poster presentations with English summaries, as well as brief descriptions of the field trips, are available from Olga Petrova (olga_petrova@mailru.com) and myself (zavarzin@bfn.spb.org). As a result of this meeting, it was decided to have the Second Russian Lichenological Field Meeting already in may 2001.

On behalf of the First Russian Lichenological Field Meeting Organising Committee I express our gratitude to the Russian Federal Programme on "Integration", the St Petersburg Naturalists Society and the Barents Secretariat for providing us with financial support.

Alexei Zavarzin, St Petersburg

'Lichens and Bryophytes from Steppe to Coast', ABLS Field Trip (10-14 August 2000)

This four-day field trip was planned and led by Bruce McCune and Roger Rosentreter. We started from Portland, Oregon, where most of the twenty-five lichenologists and bryologists had just attended the Botany 2000 convention. We packed our gear into a Grayline Bus and drove to Wapanitia Pass, an area typical of the middle elevation in the Cascade Range.

After four hours of collecting we headed east to the Columbia Plateau, an area of Oregon formed from a series of lava flows. On the far side of the rimrock, displays of colorful Pleopsidium, Caloplaca, and Psora species covered the exposed lava flow. On Friday morning we drove southwest, again crossing the Cascade Range. We stopped at Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie River. The River crosses forested lava flows and is home to many of the rare and listed cyanolichens in Oregon, including Nephroma occultum and Pseudocyphellaria rainierensis. The area is warmer with much lower snowpack than Wapanitia Pass and Lobaria oregana makes up a large biomass in the old forest growth. Pseudocyphellaria and Nephroma species were growing on the small outer twigs of conifer branches, (in California I usually encounter these lichens on the trunks of trees). There were a variety of Cladina and Cladonia species growing in forest openings. After a three-hour walk along the McKenzie river we gathered on the bus and drove to the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Coos Bay. On Saturday we drove to Cape Arago, a rocky headland jutting into the Pacific Ocean. The Easterners were looking forward to seeing our western lichens Ramalina menziesii and Vermilacinia (Niebla) cephalota. On Sunday we drove a short distance north along the coast to the Eel Creek Campground. Roger was a great leader, searching out spots for some of the more unusual lichens to be found. The wooly lichens Erioderma sorediatum and Leioderma sorediatum were quite well hidden on the native Rhododendrons. We hiked to one of the conifer 'islands' within the dunes where Roger found Anaptychia setifera Räsänen on a dune-sand blown spruce.

This field trip was a very memorable experience. Exploring a variety of habitats in Oregon, learning many new lichen species, meeting fellow lichenologists and bryologists from near and far was a true highlight. Thanks goes to Bruce and Roger for planning so well to meet the interests and needs of all the participants.

Judy Robertson, Santa Rosa

TICS (Marburg, 13-19 August 2000)

The Third International Congress on Symbiosis was held in the historical town of Marburg, Germany. The whole meeting was inspired by the intriguing way of old traditional university life and hospitality, as typical for cities like Marburg. Prof. H.C. Weber and his very professional crew of co-workers excellently organized this meeting.

The TICS was a great event for all scientists who are interested in a broad spectrum of symbiotic relationships existing between living organisms and the astonishing progress of symbiotic research during the past five years.

The presentations of the congress included a great variety of projects on mycorrhizae, microbial communities living together with plants and animals, nitrogen-fixers, endophytic fungi, lichens and also enigmatic symbiotic associations.

The contributions on lichens mainly concentrated on secondary compounds, polyketide genes (D. Armaleo), culture experiments and DNA-analyses (I. Yoshimura, E. Stocker-Wörgötter) and transplantation experiments in the field (S. Etges and S. Ott). Topics touching ecophysiological problems (e.g. salt tolerance of lichen fungi, Y. Yamamoto; the role of lichen secondary compounds for channelling thallus water flow, D. Armaleo) and general aspects of the lichen symbiosis (S. Ott and H.M. Jahns) were discussed enthusiastically.

Elfie Stocker-Wörgötter, Salzburg

Lichen Monitoring Workshop (Pembrokeshire, 16-23 August 2000)

A workshop on Lichen Monitoring was held on the west coast of Wales at Orielton Field Centre, Pembrokeshire from 16-23^rd August 2000 as a NATO Advanced Research Workshop to encourage collaboration between NATO and partner country scientists. This required directors; Pier Luigi Nimis, Gregory Insarov and Pat Wolseley, and an organising committee added Brian Coppins, Sergey Kondratyuk and Christoph Scheidegger. Organized by Pat from the Botany Department NHM in collaboration with the British Lichen Society, the workshop mushroomed into an international event with 63 participants from Europe, the former Soviet Union and USA, where lichen biomonitoring is already established; and participants from countries such as Tajikstan, Thailand, Sri Lanka , where cost-effective monitoring programmes are urgently needed. The objective was to discuss methods to assess gaseous and metal pollution, biodiversity and sustainable management, and RDB species action plans. An intensive programme of presentations and discussions was interspersed with short visits to sites within easy access from Orielton, illustrating aspects of lichen monitoring, from management of important National Nature Reserves with RDB species, to coastal sites affected by oil from the Sea Empress disaster in 1996. The outcome of this workshop will be a review of Lichen Monitoring methodology and application to be published in the NATO Advanced Research Workshop series by Kluwer.

Pat Wolseley, London

Homage to Ernie Brodo (Ottawa, 10 November 2000)

On November 10, 2000, Irwin M. Brodo became Research Scientist Emeritus, at the Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN), having reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. Ernie, as he is known affectionately to friends and colleagues, thus marks an important milestone in a long, distinguished, and continuing career in lichenology. The occasion was marked in Ottawa by a festive mini-symposium, organized by his CMN colleagues Paul Hamilton and Laurie Consaul, and attended by more than 110 people. As neither the texts nor the abstracts of the presentations made at this gathering are likely to resurface in the peer-reviewed literature, we have seen fit to place a brief account of the proceedings on record here.

The customary poster section comprised a single contribution, a socio-lichenological perspective (in the form of a photo-montage) of Ernie in various settings with students and colleagues. The net effect was a demonstration of rapid cultural evolution (mainly of the students) over the past 35 years. (One of us must confess to astonishment, in view of his remarkably shaggy former appearance, that Ernie agreed to take him on as a graduate student at all!) The conference hall (the CMN cafeteria) contained numerous supplementary exhibits, including lichen-covered table-centrepieces, and many balloons-ascus and ascospore motifs? ... their number some multiple of 8?

The keynote paper, by Paul Hamilton, dealt with the curious developmental morphology of a remarkable species within the genus Brodoa. Particular attention was drawn to the conspicuous changes in the pubescence-state of this taxon: cranial hair but no beard in the juvenile stage, then cranial hair with beard, followed by beard with no cranial hair. The diagnosis was well and mirthfully received.

The ensuing presentation centred on a slide of the honoree surrounded by members of the Macoun Club. (This is the young persons' section of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club. The OFNC, of which Ernie is a former president, publishes The Canadian Field-Naturalist, a quarterly research journal.) Ernie led the Macoun group for several years, considerably increasing its membership through his infectious enthusiasm for systematic nature study and his love of wilderness canoeing and camping. Not surprisingly, a number of members during those years later turned to natural science as a career, and are now well-established scientists in their own right.

After acknowledgements of Ernie's contributions from CMN management, the floor was taken by François Lutzoni to give a vivid speech from the students perspective. With his trademark wit and wisdom, George Argus then sang a wonderful poem by Robert Service, "The Petit Vieux", offering some tongue-in-cheek words of advice to Ernie for his retirement. (George is himself an emeritus scientist at CMN, having worked alongside Ernie for many years as a vascular plant systematist, authority on Salix, and coordinator of a major inventory and critical review of the rare vascular flora of Canada.)

Last but certainly not least on the program was a presentation of gifts, and of a large package of letters and cards bearing greetings and good wishes from Ernie's friends and colleagues around the world. Many more messages arrived via e-mail. All of this was a complete surprise for Ernie, and he was deeply touched. We trust that he will not feel slighted if we save, for another day, a fuller account of his achievements in research, education, and professional service. As we have noted, his is a career still very much in progress. During our visits to CANL several weeks ago, he was happily working through a set of fresh collections from the Queen Charlotte Islands. For now, then, we join Ernie's friends and colleagues in wishing him a long, healthy, happy, and productive retirement.

Stephen Clayden, Saint John; Trevor Goward, Clearwater; François Lutzoni, Chicago