The subject of the proposed project is the revision and expert elaboration of the genus Rhizocarpon in the mycological herbarium of the Natural History Museum (of the National Museum), a taxonomic revision of all species of the “brown group” of these map lichens. Thirteen species of brown map lichens of the genus Rhizocarpon may be found in the Czech Republic. When working on the previous task related to the “yellow” group of the genus Rhizocarpon, I often came across “brown” species of the same genus on brash and rocks. I collected these species for the Natural History Museum herbarium, too, thanks to which I kept a good track of their determination and was able to get a picture of probable occurrence of new species on the territory of our country. In my opinion, there are more species of this “brown group” of the genus Rhizocarpon occurring in the Czech Republic than Liška and Palice (2010) stated. Due to this fact, I consider it important to revise items stored in the Natural History Museum and PRC (herbarium collections of the Department of Botany, Charles University) to ensure these species were correctly determined in the past. The project focuses on the verification of the occurrence of species in locations, mainly mountainous and sub-mountainous, where these lichens occur most frequently on a silicate and basic, rocky, or boulder foundation. A specific part is the level of difficulty of taxonomic determination and revision due to the fact that these species of the genus Rhizocarpon are very similar to each other and that many items will need to be determined through thin-layer chromatography (TLC). Within the project, it is necessary to process items not yet sorted. The sorting out by museum methods into new herbarium boxes and entering into the database will mean easy handling and fast searching for future revisions, taxonomic and biogeographic studies. The sorting will include deciphering (or finding out from different sources) the names of locations (often illegible or written in abbreviations or marked only with a numerical code). At the same time, items will be taxonomically determined. Some herbarium items will have to have their taxonomic classification revised. This applies particularly to those species with a taxonomic concept which has changed since their inclusion. Thanks to new results of taxonomic research (descriptions of new taxonomic units, synonymising, etc.), the collections have to be constantly revised.


Project name: Brown species of the genus Rhizocarpon in mycological collections of the National Museum – taxonomic study, revision of the collection material
Duration: 2017–2018
Agency: National Museum
Project type: Internal grant
NM’s investigator: Mgr. František Bouda


Anticipated results/outputs:
The objective of the project submitted is to expertly process the “brown group” of the genus Rhizocarpon in the Czech Republic, to elaborate a taxonomic study, and to revise the national Museum collection material. In the first year of the project, bases for the preparation of poster presentation on the Bryological and Lichenological days will be prepared. The presentation will include the introduction of the project and a summary of the results available at the moment. By the end of the second year, a manuscript summarising the project results will be ready. It will then be sent to a peer-reviewed journal, and the results will be presented in the form of a lecture at the Fourth Czech-Slovak Lichenological Conference.

Bouda František, Mgr.

Head of Department
E-mail: frantisek.bouda@nm.cz
Phone: 224 497 853