The Research Area Fungi at the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin undertakes research on different groups of fungi at a global level. We focus on lichen-forming fungi, through assessments of their biodiversity in diverse regions especially in the tropics, integrating DNA sequence data, morphological characters, ecology, and distribution ranges. While we work with all kinds of lichens, our focal groups are the families Graphidaceae, Peltigeraceae, and Dictyonemataceae, encompassing chiefly tropical and Southern Hemisphere lichens in some of the most speciose families known.
Our geographic focus is in the Americas, especially Mexico, Costa Rica, the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico), Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, but also in the Mediterranean (Greece) and recently in the Caucasus (Armenia). Other ongoing projects encompass The Philippines, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Main objectives are the generation of updated checklists and identification tools for lichens of selected groups and regions. Besides elucidating the evolution of lichen-forming fungi, we also focus on the delimitation of species, in particular the discovery of unrecognized species hidden under known names and the question, how many closely related species evolved to coexist in the same habitats.
Another focal project is the assessment of global fungal diversity, through innovative tools that allow quantitative predictions, but also through precise analysis of a large body of data now available with novel techniques of environmental DNA sequencing. These methods detect fungal species in diverse substrates, such as soil, water, air, but also plants and animals. While the actual fungi often remain invisible, the DNA sequences can be used to assemble a global framework of most of the fungi that exist on our planet. To that end, we collaborate with global experts to establish a classification framework of curated names and data for these "dark fungal taxa". Our most recent prediction is 2–3 million species of fungi globally, only 165,000 of which have been catalogued. So there is still a lot of work ahead!