New and interesting Websites

ASU website - The Arizona State University Lichen Herbarium website (http://mgd.nacse.org/Arizona) presently includes general information on the greater Sonoran Desert Flora project, commonly used lichen links, a searchable database with label data on over 50% of our 90,000 lichen specimens, herbarium personnel, as well as lists of exsiccati and type holdings. The lichen herbarium database has also recently become searchable at The SpeciesAnalyst (http://habanero.nhm.ukans.edu). General information and the current exchange list for the biannual ABLS Lichen Exchange can also be found on the ASU website. Presently, in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Studies, we are developing a more advanced search technology to facilitate complex internet-based queries and a eventually a virtual flora with the use of all of the natural history collections housed at Arizona State University. (R. Schoeninger, Tempe)

Russian Lichenological Resources - This is a web site by Vitaly Kulakov, Volgograd, Russia (http://nature.vspu.ru/lichens/indexe.html). At the moment the site contains the following links: Russian lichenological bibliography - a total of 2026 citations of publications by Russian and Soviet lichenologists (in any language) and of lichenological studies of the territory of Russia and former Soviet Union. Furthermore, a virtual lichenological library of selected articles and monographs, keys for identification of lichens with several lichen taxa, Photographs of lichens from southeastern part of European Russia and from the First Russian Lichenological Field Meeting. (Alexei Zavarzin, St Petersburg)

Air Quality in Pacific Northwest America - I am involved in the effort to develop a database for lichen monitoring data collected from national forests in the US. So far we have data from the Pacific NW and Alaska on-line (http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/aq/lichen). Users can query the database and make distribution maps, and overlay distribution data on topographic, political and climatic base maps. By clicking on data points on the map, or requesting results as a table, users can also retrieve ecological and pollution data. I am very excited about the current capability and we will continue to update the information. The work was done in partnership with the computer science department (NACSE) at Oregon State University. (Linda Geiser, Corvallis)

FungalWeb - A year ago, an international group of mycologists met in Copenhagen to plan a new integrative website. The group included Kerry O`Donnell, Ulrik Søchting, John Taylor, Lene Lange, Ove Eriksson, Ib Groth Clausen, Rob Samson, Mikako Sasa, Henning Knudsen, Jens Frisvad, Thomas Laessøe, Søren Rosendahl, and Franz Oberwinkler. FungalWeb is now available with the aim to link genetic and phenotypic databases to a current fungal taxonomy (http://www.fungalweb.com). A link to the Anamorph/Holomorph Connections Database permits integration of meiosporic and mitosporic fungi. With the "backbone" of fungal genera well on its way, FungalWeb will incorporate species of socially important genera such as Aspergillus and Penicillium as "ribs" on the generic backbone. (Ulrik Søchting, Kopenhagen)