Their adjusted odds ratio for cognitive impairment was 0.635, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.525–0.744, relative to the reference group with poor dietary diversity and poor mushroom-and-algae intake. In the unadjusted model, the corresponding odds ratio was 0.466, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.405–0.779. The unadjusted odds ratio for good dietary diversity alone was 0.653, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.591–0.873.

By contrast, good edible mushroom and algae intake without adequate dietary diversity was not significantly associated with cognitive impairment in any adjusted model. The study therefore did not find evidence that mushroom-and-algae intake was associated with lower odds independently of dietary diversity. Instead, its main joint-association analysis indicated that this food-category exposure was associated with lower odds only in the context of good dietary diversity.

The authors characterized dietary diversity as independently associated with lower odds of impairment, while mushroom-and-algae intake was associated with additional lower odds within the context of a diverse diet. The researchers also examined whether the two dietary exposures interacted on multiplicative and additive scales. The multiplicative interaction test was not statistically significant, with P = 0.405.

In the additive assessment using the relative excess risk due to interaction, the estimate was −0.174, with a 95% confidence interval of −0.750 to 0.402. The study also used the attributable proportion and synergy index to assess additive interaction. Technically, the researchers combined descriptive statistics with multivariable logistic regression models.

Participants were divided according to whether they had good or poor dietary diversity and good or poor intake of edible mushrooms and algae, producing four exposure groups. The reference category consisted of participants with poor dietary diversity and poor mushroom-and-algae intake. The regression models adjusted for demographic, lifestyle and health-related covariates, and the interaction assessment used measures intended to evaluate departures from multiplicative and additive interaction models.

The results are based on a cross-sectional analysis, so they describe associations in the sampled population rather than changes in cognition over time or evidence that either dietary exposure prevented cognitive impairment. The available summary does not report the number of participants, the dates of data collection, the instruments used to measure cognition or dietary intake, or the exact thresholds separating good and poor categories. It also does not provide detailed results for the attributable proportion and synergy index, although those measures were included in the additive interaction assessment.

Interpretive caution is particularly important because a cross-sectional design cannot establish whether dietary patterns preceded the presence of cognitive impairment. The study also cannot establish that mushrooms, algae or the combined category caused the observed lower odds. The authors’ conclusion was appropriately framed around joint association: dietary diversity showed an inverse association with cognitive impairment, whereas mushroom-and-algae intake was associated with additional lower odds only within the context of a diverse diet.

On that basis, the findings offer no intervention evidence but provide a detailed population-level association. The clearest pattern was not an independent association for edible mushroom and algae intake, but the combination of that intake with good dietary diversity. The adjusted estimates were 0.766 for good diversity alone and 0.635 for good diversity combined with good mushroom-and-algae intake, while the combination of poor diversity and poor intake formed the reference group.

The authors proposed that public-health strategies may promote overall dietary quality alongside targeted mushroom and algae consumption, particularly for older populations at high risk, but the cross-sectional findings do not demonstrate that such a strategy improves cognition or prevents impairment.

Subject of Research: Joint associations of dietary diversity and edible mushroom and algae intake with cognitive impairment in Chinese older adults

Article Title: Joint effects of dietary diversity and intake of edible mushrooms and algae on cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults: a population-based cross-sectional study

Article References: Yu, Q., Wang, Y., Yu, M., Chen, F., Qi, H., Jiang, M., Wang, X., & Wang, W. (2026). Joint effects of dietary diversity and intake of edible mushrooms and algae on cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults: a population-based cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Nutrition, 13, Article 1960150. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2026.1960150

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2026.1960150

Keywords: cognitive impairment, dietary diversity, edible mushrooms, algae, older adults, cross-sectional study, nutritional epidemiology, Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, logistic regression, interaction analysis, Joint, effects

The first proposed criterion is that a unitary multicellular organism, unlike a colonial aggregation of unicellular organisms, must develop as a multicellular body and reproduce only after reaching a multicellular vegetative stage. On this definition, colonies formed by independently living cells, such as those in slime molds, myxobacteria and some algae, remain distinct from organisms whose life cycle obligatorily includes a multicellular phase. The author also treats multinucleate bodies that lack genuine cellular partitions, including those of some ciliates and protists, as nonmulticellular under the criterion.

The second criterion concerns how a multicellular body produces a daughter organism. Reproduction may be monocytic, when a new organism originates from one cell, such as a spore, zygote, gamete, parthenogenetic egg or totipotent somatic cell, or polycytic, when it originates from many cells through fragmentation, fission or budding. The review also emphasizes that sexual and asexual reproduction need not increase the number of individuals, and it treats parthenogenesis as a variant of sexual reproduction because the offspring develops from a specialized gamete. In plants, parthenogenesis is distinguished from other forms of apomixis in which embryos arise from cells other than the egg.

Based on the monocytic criterion, the review divides obligate multicellularity into protonemal, siphonoseptal and embryogenic forms. Protonemal multicellularity begins when a spore or zygote divides to form a filamentous protonema, with daughter cells growing after division; examples occur among bacteria and numerous algal and plant lineages. Siphonoseptal multicellularity begins with repeated nuclear divisions without cytoplasmic division, producing a multinucleate siphon that may later become partitioned by septa; the review identifies this pattern in green algae, yellow-green algae, fungi and fungus-like organisms. Some bodies that separate into cenocytes and later fuse are interpreted as colonies rather than multicellular organisms under this framework.

Embryogenic multicellularity is described as the most complex of the three forms. It develops through obligate accumulative oogamy or accumulative aplanosporia, in which the gamete or spore is larger than the ordinary cells of the maternal body, sometimes by hundreds or thousands of times in size. Palintomic divisions, in which nuclear and cytoplasmic division recur without intervening growth, or syntomic divisions, in which the cytoplasm is divided into numerous compartments, then produce an embryo or an asexual analogue termed an embryoid. The embryo depends on maternal nourishment or stored reserves until it begins an independent life. The review associates this form with all animals, higher-plant sporophytes and selected algal and plant life cycles.

Complex multicellular organisms with differentiated tissues and organs are described as developing through the embryogenic route. The author proposes that a large, structured egg and rapid cleavage help establish developmental organization, including predetermined cleavage and the formation of tissues and organs. No embryogenic multicellularity is identified among prokaryotes, although the review presents this as a probable evolutionary explanation rather than a directly tested mechanism. It attributes the absence partly to limited internal transport in prokaryotic cells, noting that their lack of an endoplasmic reticulum restricts diffusion-based transport and cell size. The large bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis, reaching 0.75 millimetres in diameter, is exceptional because much of its interior is vacuolar and only a thin peripheral layer contains cytoplasm.

The review then considers a problem created by multicellular growth: male and female gametes must become available at the same place and time, but the larger parental bodies mature at different rates and immobile female gametes cannot travel far. It identifies three broad solutions: retaining eggs on or within the maternal organism until sperm arrive, synchronously releasing gametes into the external environment, or releasing them passively in response to shared environmental cues. The author argues that the first arrangement is the simplest and occurs in many archaic plants, fungi, algae and animals, including sponges, Trichoplax, dicyemids, orthonectids, Volvox and higher plants.

From this distribution, the review infers that internal fertilization, defined broadly to include fertilization on the maternal body, was ancestral to multicellular animals. It contrasts this inference with traditional diagrams of animals arising from choanoflagellate colonies, in which eggs are commonly shown entering open water. Archaic organisms lacked the coordinated nervous, muscular and reproductive structures used by later animals to eject gametes together, while rupture of an individual gametangium would not ensure simultaneous release among separate individuals. The proposed sequence instead places zygote division and early development within the colonial body, followed by formation of a mobile dispersal stage comparable to the synzoospore concept associated with Zakhvatkin and represented in modern sponges by a comparable larval role.

External fertilization is therefore treated as a later animal innovation enabled in cnidarians and ctenophores by nervous systems, gonads, musculature and, in some groups, reproductive ducts. The review also examines less coordinated alternatives, including water-flow-mediated gamete release in some demosponges and tidal synchronization in algae such as Fucus, where gametangia may dry at low tide and rupture after rewetting. It attributes the predominance of spore-based reproduction in plants to the difficulty of synchronizing gamete release, while noting that many flowering plants depend on animal pollinators and that some red algae use crustaceans for gamete transfer. The synthesis remains a broad review with variable evidence across taxonomically difficult groups, particularly fungi, algae and colonial organisms, and its evolutionary conclusions are explicitly dependent on the proposed reproductive definitions and classifications.

Subject of Research: Evolutionary origins of multicellularity and reproductive modes

Article Title: Ancient reproductive modes and criteria of multicellularity

Article References: Gavrilov-Zimin, I. A. (2023). Ancient reproductive modes and criteria of multicellularity. Comparative Cytogenetics, 17, 195-238. https://doi.org/10.3897/compcytogen.17.109671

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/compcytogen.17.109671

Keywords: multicellularity, evolutionary biology, reproductive modes, internal fertilization, viviparity, embryogenesis, protonemal multicellularity, siphonoseptal multicellularity, algae, animals, Ancient, reproductive

Among the most striking algal findings is the confirmation of Acetabularia caliculus for Italy, discovered in August 2023 at Porto Pozzo in northern Sardinia. The species, a member of the green algae family Polyphysaceae, was found growing densely on a shoal of no more than thirty square meters near the entrance of a small gulf and lagoon, on very fine sediments at a depth of about three meters. Acetabularia caliculus is distinguished from its better-known relative A. acetabulum by a generally longer axis, a darker green terminal disc with significantly fewer rays — between 22 and 35 compared with 55 to 90 — and an upper crown formed by segments that are not fused together. Although first described from Western Australia, in the Mediterranean it had previously been recorded only from the Balearic Islands and the north-western coast of Spain, making the Sardinian population a remarkable biogeographic extension.

The charophyte green algae, close relatives of the ancestors of land plants, feature prominently in the new survey. Fieldwork in the mountain lakes of Abruzzo revealed three species of Nitella and the monotypic genus Nitellopsis new to the region. Nitella opaca, previously known in Italy from Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardia, Veneto, Lazio and Sardegna, was found to dominate the submerged vegetation of the Montagna Spaccata reservoir and to cover large areas in the Campotosto reservoir, while remaining less abundant in the natural lake of Scanno. The species is dioecious, distinguishing it from the similar N. flexilis, and typically colonizes high-conductivity, calcium-rich waters at varying depths, requiring relatively cold water with an optimal temperature range of 12 to 15 degrees Celsius.

Nitella gracilis, another addition to the Abruzzese flora, presents a more troubling conservation picture. The species was detected only in small quantities within mats of dominant characeans in three reservoir lakes. It is a rare and endangered species across Europe: extinct in Denmark and endangered in the Balkans, Sweden and Switzerland. Its ecological optimum points to low-calcium waters, which makes its discovery in association with the calciphilous N. opaca an ecological puzzle that the authors say requires further investigation. Meanwhile, Nitellopsis obtusa — the only extant member of its genus — was found to dominate the deepest vegetation belt of Lake Campotosto, between nine and fourteen meters depth. The species is of conservation concern in much of its native European range, yet it is classified as invasive in North America, illustrating how the conservation status of a single organism can diverge sharply between continents.

A particularly satisfying note concerns the rediscovery of Nitellopsis obtusa in Basilicata. The only previous record for the region dated back more than a century, to 1908 in the Monticchio lakes, and recent work had concluded that the species was extinct there. The new find at Lago Pantano, where characeans are very rare and occur interspersed within vegetation dominated by Ceratophyllum demersum, demonstrates how long-absent species can persist undetected in overlooked water bodies. Such rediscoveries underscore the value of sustained floristic monitoring: a species absent from records for over a hundred years may simply have escaped the attention of surveyors rather than vanished from the landscape.

Among the bryophytes, several notable records emerged from the mountains of Trentino-Alto Adige. Drepanocladus turgescens, a moss with a mainly subarctic-alpine distribution in Europe and rare in the Mediterranean, was confirmed for the region after more than a century — the previous signal dated to 1904 for Passo di Resia, where it had not been reconfirmed. New collections from the Sella Group at 2,812 meters, the Brenta Group and the Pale di San Martino plateau, all on wet dolomite, establish that the species persists in the high Dolomites. Hookeria lucens, a moss of shaded and humid sites, was recorded as new to Trentino-Alto Adige from a limited settlement of a few square decimeters along the Chiese stream in a scarcely accessible and partially explored area, highlighting how much remains to be discovered even in well-studied alpine territories.

The aquatic moss Fissidens fontanus was documented as new to Trentino-Alto Adige from the Sarca river between Torbole and Arco, growing on stones at depths of 10 to 30 centimeters. The species is identified by the absence of a central strand in the stem and sheathing laminae that reach only a quarter to a third of the total leaf length. In Italy it is known from scattered records, with older data from northern regions and more recent findings in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Toscana, Sardegna and Sicilia. Equally significant is the report of Weissia angustifolia as new to Italy, found on sunny flowerbeds in Piombino and in Mediterranean garrigue at Talamone in Toscana. The species was only recently recognized at species level, having previously been treated as a variety of W. longifolia; it differs from other European members of the genus by tightly involute margins along the distal half of the perichaetial leaves, a short seta, and an abscission zone at the junction of the operculum and urn — a combination unique among European species of the subgenus Astomum.

The fungal records concentrate on the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria, which proved an unexpectedly rich site for rare agarics. Alnicola macrospora, Cortinarius vernus, Inocybe assimilata, Inocybe bresadolae, Leucoagaricus purpureolilacinus and Neohygrocybe ovina were all documented as new to Calabria, most of them previously known only from northern and central Italian regions. Cortinarius vernus, a spring species of the subgenus Telamonia, was identified by its strongly verrucose but broadly ellipsoid spores, longer than those of the closely related C. erythrinus. Leucoagaricus purpureolilacinus, a slender and fragile lepiotaceous fungus, has been reported in only a few Italian regions so far. The lichenicolous fungus Arthonia epiphyscia was recorded as new to Trentino-Alto Adige from Monte Castellazzo in the Dolomites at about 2,100 meters — the first collection of the species in Italy above the treeline — while the related A. phaeophysciae, a parasite on Phaeophyscia lichens that bleaches infected areas of the host thallus, was documented from Val Venosta. The rust fungus Puccinia phragmitis was also added to the Calabrian flora from its bright red stage on leaves of Rumex crispus.

Lichenology contributed some of the most ecologically revealing records. Bacidina adastra, described only in 2003 from the Netherlands and previously reported in Italy just twice from Emilia-Romagna, was found at two Lombard localities: a broadleaved woodland that has developed over the last 25 years on a former industrial site near the center of Milan, and the outskirts of an agricultural village. Both settings confirm the species’ affinity for anthropized habitats under eutrophicated conditions — a striking example of biodiversity adapting to post-industrial landscapes. Chaenotheca gracilenta, a pinhead lichen so rare in Italy that it is listed as “vulnerable” in the national Red List of epiphytic lichens, was discovered on juniper bark and roots at the entrances of prehistoric caves in Umbria, a habitat typical of the niches protected from rain that the species favors. Heterodermia speciosa, listed as “near-threatened,” was confirmed for Lazio from a moist montane beech stand on Monte Terminillo, coherent with its optimum in humid woodlands.

Finally, the survey documents taxonomic progress as well as new geography. The lichen Squamarina subcetrarioides, long treated as a variety of S. gypsacea, was shown in a 2023 molecular study to differ from the typical Mediterranean variety not only in morphology and altitudinal distribution but also genetically, and is now treated as a distinct species of the alpine and Carpathian belts. Records from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, Piemonte, Marche and Abruzzo — some drawn from herbarium material collected decades ago — establish its presence across the Italian Alps and Apennines. Together with the rediscovery of century-old charophytes and the colonization of industrial ruins by rare lichens, the sixteenth Notulae installment demonstrates that Italy’s flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens remains far from fully mapped, and that careful fieldwork, even in familiar landscapes, continues to yield discoveries of both scientific and conservation significance.

Subject of Research: New floristic records of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens in Italy

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophtes, fungi and lichens: 16

Article References: Ravera, S., Vizzini, A., Totti, C., Puglisi, M., Azzella, M. M., Battaglini, A., Bernardo, L., Bonini, I., Calvia, G., Cancellieri, L., Cantonati, M., De Giuseppe, A. B., Fačkovcová, Z., Filibeck, G., Galasso, G., Galli, R., Gheza, G., Guttová, A., Hafellner, J., … Trainito, E. (2023). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophtes, fungi and lichens: 16. Italian Botanist, 16, 105-120. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.16.114044

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.16.114044

Keywords: Italian flora, algae, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, charophytes, biodiversity, conservation, floristic records, Acetabularia, Nitella, Squamarina

The algal records centre on the Characeae, the stoneworts, a family of macroscopic green algae whose calcified bodies resemble miniature aquatic plants. In Abruzzo, surveyors working in the Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga and the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo Lazio e Molise found Chara contraria and Chara globularis on lake bottoms between 0.5 and 8 metres deep in Campotosto, Scanno, Barrea and Montagna Spaccata. Both species are new for the regional flora of Abruzzo. Chara contraria has been reported from only a few Italian administrative regions, probably because it is difficult to distinguish from the common Chara vulgaris. Genetic analyses by Schneider and colleagues showed that C. contraria belongs to a distinct lineage with a diplostichous and tylacanthous cortex, more closely related to the Chara hispida group than to the Chara vulgaris group. In the Campotosto reservoir it occasionally dominates the submerged vegetation, while in the natural lake of Scanno it is very rare and only associated with communities dominated by Chara vulgaris.

Chara globularis, the most frequently reported stonewort in Italy after Chara vulgaris, was recorded as the dominant species of submerged vegetation at depths of 3 to 6 metres in Campotosto and Scanno, and less commonly in the artificial basins of Barrea and Montagna Spaccata. A separate collection from Lago Pantano in Pignola, Potenza, at 0.7 metres depth, is new for the flora of Basilicata, where the Characeae occur only as small patches interspersed within Ceratophyllum demersum vegetation. The team also confirmed Chara gymnophylla for Abruzzo, a controversial taxon that some authors treat as merely a variety of Chara vulgaris and others as a good species. It can be distinguished by its ecorticated branchlets, or branchlets with only one to two corticated basal segments, plus completely ecorticate fertile segments. Notably, the specimen illustrating this taxon in the standard Italian flora was collected in 2008 from Lecce nei Marsi, in Abruzzo, even though the region was not previously listed for the species.

In Toscana, a shallow pond of about 850 square metres in a Quercus cerris coppice near Chiusdino yielded a consistent fertile population of Nitella tenuissima, new for the regional flora, together with an even larger population of Chara globularis. Both are indicator species of the Habitat Directive habitat 3140, hard oligo-mesotrophic waters with benthic vegetation of Chara species. The populations were found near the pond bank, reflecting a consistent ecological pattern: small species like Nitella tenuissima occupy the shallow margins of wetlands, while larger species such as Chara globularis extend into deeper water. In Italy, Nitella tenuissima had previously been recorded only in Lombardia, Veneto, Lazio and Sicilia.

The bryophyte records tell a story of rediscovery as much as novelty. Brachythecium albicans, a boreo-temperate moss with pale whitish-green, string-like shoots typical of sandy or gravelly acid soils, was confirmed for Basilicata at Piano Iannace on open soil at the border of a beech wood at 1,705 metres. The confirmation arrives more than 80 years after the last reports, which were published in 1913 and 1938, and after decades in which southern regions such as Campania, Calabria and Basilicata had exclusively old records predating 1968. Didymodon sinuosus, a moss of damp calcareous rocks along watercourses, is new for Trentino-Alto Adige, found along a five-metre section of a limestone stone irrigation gully in the Guerrieri-Gonzaga Park at Villa Lagarina, one of the best-preserved historical parks in Trentino, built together with the garden about two centuries ago. The species is common in central-southern Italy but quite rare in the northern regions.

Fissidens osmundoides, a circumpolar boreo-arctic montane moss of wet rocks and stream beds, was confirmed for Toscana in the rocky bed of a stream in a deciduous forest near Chiusdino; its presence in the region had been considered doubtful, based on a record published in 1942. Physcomitrium patens, a short-lived Eurosiberian pioneer that colonizes wet mud and sediment, is new for Toscana, found in the muddy bed of a dried-up pond with abundant capsules. The liverwort Riccia ciliifera was confirmed for Toscana in the Botanical Garden of Pisa, on damp clay along the paths separating the flowerbeds at just 4 metres above sea level. The species was first recorded for Toscana in 1901 by Attilio Tassi in the Botanical Garden of Siena, and can be distinguished from other members of Riccia subgenus Riccia by its wide thallus and violet-purple thallus margins, differing from the closely related Riccia gougetiana in thallus colour, lobe size, ventral scale cells and spore ornamentation.

Among the fungi, the most striking novelty is Biatoropsis hafellneri, a lichenicolous fungus newly recorded for Italy and for the Mediterranean flora. Found on thalli of Usnea cornuta growing on branches and trunks of Quercus ilex in a dense mature forest on Monte di Seneghe in Sardegna, this recently described species is confined to Usnea hosts, where it causes the formation of typical pale to medium orange galls containing one-septate basidia with laterally elongating cells. Cantharellus pallens, very similar to the better known Cantharellus cibarius but producing smaller and more strongly yellow pilei without pruina on the upper surface, is new to Calabria, detected in the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria in a coppice stand dominated by Quercus pubescens. Two Coprinellus species, C. domesticus near the butt of a cut Italian poplar and C. silvaticus in oak litter, are also new to Calabria, as is Dacrymyces capitatus, a rarely observed jelly fungus whose gelatinous orange discoid structures on dead oak wood revealed septate, clampless, thick-walled hyphae and cylindrical three-to-four-septate spores measuring 12 to 15 by 4 to 6 micrometres under the light microscope. Inosperma quietiodor, an ectomycorrhizal fungus distinguished from its relative I. cookei mainly by a smell resembling Lactarius quietus in young specimens rather than honey-like, is new to Liguria, with spore dimensions fitting published European descriptions.

The lichenicolous and fungicolous records include Nigropuncta rugulosa, widely distributed in the Holarctic but previously known in Italy from a single collection in Trentino-Alto Adige, now documented on the thallus of Bellemerea cinereorufescens from alpine boulder fields and rock faces in Lombardia, Val d’Aosta and Piemonte at roughly 1,950 to 2,630 metres. Urocystis eranthidis, a smut fungus on the petioles of Eranthis hyemalis, is new to Calabria and extremely localized there; the species is included in the Berlin Red List as threatened with extinction due to the rarefaction of its host plant. Xanthoriicola physciae, a conspicuous fungus on the apothecia of the common lichen Xanthoria parietina, is new to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto and Piemonte, filling a curious gap: in northern Italy it had been reported only for Lombardia, and there is no historical record of this otherwise common species.

The lichen records carry particular conservation weight. Usnea cornuta, found on twigs of Erica arborea in Sardegna and on the bark of Quercus ilex at Monte di Seneghe, is restricted to humid-temperate, oceanic areas and is included in the Italian red list of epiphytic lichens as Endangered. Its Sardinian population grows in a mature Quercus ilex forest characterised by numerous Lobarion community species such as Lobaria pulmonaria, Ricasolia virens and Sticta limbata, an assemblage that signals long ecological continuity and clean air. Parmelia discordans, a foliose lichen of siliceous rocks known only from Europe, mainly coastal in Scandinavia and restricted to upland areas in central and southern Europe, is new to Italy on granite boulders in pastures near Fonni in Sardegna, differing from its close relative Parmelia omphalodes mainly in the content of protocetraric acid. Arthonia phlyctiformis, an epiphytic lichenized species seemingly not rare along the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula on acid-barked trees, is new to Italy from fallen branches in a public garden in Lecce, Puglia.

Other lichen novelties extend the known ranges of alpine and Mediterranean elements. Bellemerea alpina, a bipolar species common in the Alps from the treeline ecotone to the alpine belt, is new to Toscana from siliceous boulders in the northern Apennines at about 1,730 metres, the first record outside the Alps in Italy, since a historical record from Sicilia is regarded as doubtful. Circinaria nimisii, recently described from Mount Olympus in Greece as a vagrant lichen of steppe-like vegetation over calcareous substrata, is new to Italy from vertical faces of calcareous rocks below Corno Piccolo in the Gran Sasso Massif at 2,350 metres; specimens collected there in 1996 had been provisionally assigned to other taxa before matching the description of C. nimisii, with thalli very easily detachable but not truly vagrant. Peltigera lepidophora, diagnostic for its peltate isidia and slightly tomentose upper surface, easily overlooked because of its small size, is new to Liguria from calcareous schist outcrops in subalpine pasture at 1,850 metres. Porpidia tuberculosa, usually found as a sterile saxicolous crust on persistently moist siliceous rocks and therefore often overlooked, is new to Calabria and Sicilia and confirmed for Lombardia. Mycobilimbia sphaeroides is new to Campania on trunks of Alnus cordata along the river Calore in the Parco Nazionale del Cilento, where it colonizes large portions of alder bark together with fertile thalli of Lobaria pulmonaria and other Lobarion species. Naetrocymbe rhododendri, identifiable by its club-shaped bicellular spores with one cell larger than the other, is new to Lombardia from dead stems of dwarf shrubs in a high-altitude open limestone habitat at 1,980 metres. Lecanora horiza, a mainly Mediterranean member of the morphologically variable Lecanora subfusca group, is new to Piemonte from the bark of Acer in a university campus garden, much rarer in the northern than in the Mediterranean parts of the country.

Together, the records illustrate both the richness and the fragility of Italy’s cryptogamic flora. Several confirmations arrive after gaps of 80 to 150 years, reflecting the scarcity of targeted surveys rather than genuine rarity. The series, coordinated by regional editors for each group, accepts contributions of up to 1,000 characters per record, a format designed to accelerate the flow of floristic data into the formal record. As this seventeenth instalment shows, from endangered epiphytic lichens in Sardinian holm oak forests to stoneworts in Abruzzo reservoirs and smut fungi on rare woodland plants in Calabria, the map of Italian cryptogamic diversity is still being drawn, one verified specimen at a time.

Subject of Research: New floristic records of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens across Italian regions

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 17

Article References: Ravera, S., Vizzini, A., Puglisi, M., Totti, C., Angiolini, C., Azzella, M. M., Bacilliere, G., Boccardo, F., Bonini, I., von Brackel, W., Brusa, G., Cavallaro, V., Cancellieri, L., Cannucci, S., Cantonati, M., De Giuseppe, A. B., Di Nuzzo, L., Dovana, F., Fanfarillo, E., … Zedda, L. (2024). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 17. Italian Botanist, 17, 23-41. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.17.123283

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.17.123283

Keywords: Italian flora, algae, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, Characeae, biodiversity, conservation, Italy, floristic records, Notulae, Italian

The algal section of the report introduces new records for the genera Chara and Tolypella. Specifically, Chara braunii was identified in the Lazio region, marking its first confirmed presence in this area. This species, which lacks a cortex and exhibits wide intraspecific variability, has previously been considered rare in Italy. The discovery in a permanent pond near Rome adds to the known distribution of this charophyte, which is also found in northern regions such as Piemonte and Lombardia. Additionally, Tolypella intricata was recorded in Basilicata, a species previously unknown in southern Italy. The dense aquatic vegetation in the pond where it was found was dominated by this species, indicating a thriving population in a small pond with a maximum depth of 0.7 meters.

Among the bryophytes, the study confirms the presence of Pogonatum nanum in Abruzzo, a European temperate species typically found on acidic soils. The new sites were located in beech forests characterized by high atmospheric humidity, where the moss grew among the surface roots of trees. Another significant finding is the confirmation of Pseudephemerum nitidum in Toscana, a species that had not been recorded in the region for more than 140 years. This small gregarious moss was found on quartz-rich sediments along stream edges, a habitat that supports a variety of other bryophyte species. The re-discovery of P. nitidum is particularly noteworthy given its current status as Near Threatened in Italy, highlighting the need for continued monitoring of such vulnerable populations.

The fungal records in the study provide new insights into the distribution of several genera, including Arrhenia, Arthonia, and Hebeloma. Arrhenia obscurata, a greyish-brown basidiomata, was found in Calabria, a region where it had not been previously detected. The specimen was collected among mosses along a stony path, with spores measuring 8–10 × 5–7 µm. In the alpine regions, Arthonia molendoi was recorded in Lombardia and Piemonte, growing on the thallus of other lichens such as Rusavskia elegans. This species is restricted to specific teloschistalean lichens and has a wide distribution across continents. The discovery of Arthonia parietinaria in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige further expands the known range of this conspicuous species, which is fairly common in Europe but previously under-reported in the Italian Alps.

Further fungal discoveries include Buchwaldoboletus sphaerocephalus in Calabria, a species that prefers dry Mediterranean forests and appears on pine stumps. The fungus is characterized by its yellow coloration and rapid blue bruising reaction, making it distinct in the field. Hebeloma populinum was also recorded in Calabria, found in a riparian wood among the litter of poplar trees. The basidiomata were described as having smooth, viscid pilei and pale, dense gills. In Liguria, Inocybe albomarginata was identified, with molecular analysis confirming the morphological identification. This species, previously known only from northern and central Italy, adds to the understanding of the fungal diversity in the Ligurian region. The study also notes the presence of Trechispora fastidiosa in Calabria, a species with a habitus similar to other Thelephora species but distinguishable by its microscopic characters.

The lichen records reveal a rich diversity of species across various habitats, from alpine cliffs to coastal areas. Aspicilia grisea was recorded in Val d’Aosta and Piemonte, growing on inclined rock faces of gneissic boulders. This sorediate species is widely distributed in the Alps but appears to be under-collected in many areas. Bellemerea alpina, an arctic-alpine crustose lichen, was found in Veneto on siliceous volcanic rock, marking its first confirmed presence in the region. The discovery of Cladonia ciliata in Lazio is a notable exclusion, as recent surveys have confirmed the disappearance of the species from a previously recorded site. This decline is attributed to the neglect of the archaeological area and the encroachment of Mediterranean macchia, which has negatively impacted lichen populations.

Other lichen records include Hypotrachyna sinuosa in Piemonte, a rare mild-temperate species found on the bark of birch trees. The species is declining throughout Italy and is considered almost extinct in many areas, making this confirmation particularly important. Maronea constans, a rare lichen found on smooth bark, was recorded in Piemonte, where numerous thalli were observed in a small area. This species is included in the Italian Red List as Critically Endangered, and its presence in an alluvial alder grove near the Swiss border highlights the importance of preserving such habitats. Parvoplaca tiroliensis was recorded in Val d’Aosta and Liguria, a circumpolar arctic-alpine species that appears to be fairly common over calcareous substrates in the Alps. The study also notes the presence of Polyozosia reuteri in Piemonte, a Palearctic species with a narrow ecological niche on limestone cliffs.

The discovery of Schismatomma umbrinum in Calabria marks its first record for Italy, expanding the known distribution of this species, which is primarily found in western Europe. The lichen grows on acidic rocks beneath overhangs, where it remains shaded from direct sunlight. Its almost constant sterility suggests that it may be underreported or overlooked in other areas. Solenopsora liparina was recorded in Emilia-Romagna, a saxicolous species that grows on ultramafic rocks with very low silica content. This species is known from scattered localities in Europe, and its presence in the Monte Prinzera Nature Reserve adds to the understanding of its distribution in Italy. Trapelia glebulosa was found in Val d’Aosta, a species that is common throughout the Alps but had not been previously reported in this region. The study also includes a record of Zwackhia viridis in Piemonte, a crustose lichen characterized by a thin thallus with numerous lirellae.

These new records collectively demonstrate the dynamic nature of Italy’s flora and the importance of continued botanical surveys. The study highlights the interplay between habitat characteristics and species distribution, with many new records found in specific microhabitats such as alpine cliffs, riparian woods, and acidic soils. The findings also emphasize the need for conservation efforts, particularly for species that are declining or considered threatened. By documenting these new records, the research provides a valuable resource for future studies and conservation planning, ensuring that the biodiversity of Italy is accurately represented and protected. The detailed descriptions and molecular confirmations in the study enhance the reliability of the data, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the Italian flora.

Subject of Research: Floristic updates and new species records for Italian algae, bryophytes, fungi, and lichens

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 18

Article References: Ravera, S., Vizzini, A., Puglisi, M., Totti, C., Azzella, M. M., Battaglini, A., Blaise, P., Boccardo, F., Bonini, I., Cancellieri, L., Clerc, P., De Giuseppe, A. B., Dovana, F., Fačkovcová, Z., Filibeck, G., Filippelli, F., Gheza, G., Hafellner, J., Isocrono, D., … Tretiach, M. (2024). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 18. Italian Botanist, 18, 59-73. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.138463

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.138463

Keywords: Italian flora, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, algae, biodiversity, botany, conservation, alpine ecology, species distribution, Notulae, Italian

The algal highlight is a first record for central Italy. Cladophoropsis membranacea, a siphonous green alga of the family Boodleaceae, was collected in June 2024 on rocks in the intertidal zone of the Tor Caldara Regional Nature Reserve at Anzio, near Rome, at sea level. The species was already known from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Campania, Puglia and Sicilia, but had never been documented in Lazio. The Anzio collection therefore extends the documented range of C. membranacea into central Italy for the first time, filling a conspicuous gap between its northern and southern Italian populations along the Tyrrhenian coast.

Among the bryophytes, the most technically intriguing records concern segetal mosses, the little-studied community of species adapted to cultivated fields. Bryum klinggraeffii, a segetal bryophyte instantly recognizable under the microscope by its numerous small raspberry-shaped rhizoidal tubers with protruding cells, was found in a wheat field on the moraines of Lake Garda in Lombardia, a region from which it had never been reported. The same site yielded Dicranella staphylina, a species described less than a century ago that was probably ignored for decades, as shown by its recent rediscovery in Russia and Turkey. D. staphylina demands strong anthropogenic disturbance because its propagules must be exposed to light to germinate, which explains its occurrence in ploughed fields, flowerbeds and cemeteries. Both records confirm that the peculiar habitat of cultivated fields remains among the least known in Italian bryology.

Equally striking is the confirmation of two aquatic mosses in Liguria after more than half a century of silence. Cinclidotus aquaticus and Cinclidotus fontinaloides, both members of the family Pottiaceae, were last reported in the region from samples collected before 1968. The new surveys, carried out during macrophyte sampling across eleven and seventeen watercourses respectively, found the mosses on submerged stable and coarse substrates, boulders and rocks in fast-flowing rivers, often growing together with C. riparius and the aquatic moss Rhynchostegium riparioides. C. aquaticus occupied the flood-zone of torrents from the Argentina and Bisagno to the Magra and Vara, while C. fontinaloides was identified more frequently on periodically emerged substrates in the flood-zone of medium and fast-flowing waters. The confirmations suggest that these riverine mosses never disappeared from Liguria, but simply went unrecorded.

Another bryophyte confirmation carries a historical echo. Pulvigera lyelii, an epiphytic moss first reported in Lazio in 1933 at the Botanical Garden of Rome and subsequently at Lake Albano in 1962, was refound at both of those historic localities and at seven new sites across the provinces of Rome, Rieti and Viterbo. The species grows on the trunks of Quercus cerris, Q. ilex, Tilia, Prunus and Robinia pseudacacia, but appears particularly linked to sites where microclimatic conditions guarantee a constant presence of atmospheric humidity, a technical detail with obvious relevance as air humidity patterns shift.

The fungal records include one of the rarest fungi in Europe. Ascocoryne turficola, a saprotrophic discomycete of high conservation value that is listed in the Red Lists of most countries where it occurs, was found in October 2021 in Sphagnum mats of a light subalpine forest in the Alpi Graie of Val d’Aosta, at 2055 metres, alongside the rare sedge Carex pauciflora. The species grows on remains of Sphagnum and other wetland plants in strongly hydrated conditions, and its ascomata are waxy, turbinate apothecia that turn strongly gelatinous, cup-shaped or gibbose-cerebriform with age. The collection is only the second record of A. turficola from Italy since 1995, when it was reported from Trentino. The species has also recently been documented in Canada and West Siberia, hinting at a wider distribution than its Red List status implies.

Calabria emerged as the fungal epicentre of this contribution, with new regional records for Echinoderma jacobi, Hohenbuehelia atrocoerulea, Laccaria populina, Lasiosphaeria ovina, Leucocoprinus cygneus, Neodasyscypha cerina, Propolis farinosa, Psathyrella tephrophylla, Calycina claroflava and Ascocoryne turficola’s southern relatives. Several of these were found inside the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria, a reminder that even managed green spaces can shelter undocumented diversity. E. jacobi produced lepiotoid basidiomes with broadly convex pilei 1.5 to 2.0 centimetres wide, uniformly covered by persistent brownish scales, with hyaline smooth ellipsoid spores measuring 4 to 5 by 2.5 to 3 micrometres. H. atrocoerulea sprouted from the dead timber of a bench, its kidney-shaped basidiomata bearing crowded whitish-ochraceous gills and fusoid cheilocystidia apically encrusted with evident metuloids. L. populina was confirmed not only morphologically but genetically: a newly generated nrITS sequence of the Italian voucher shared 350 of 350 nucleotides, a 100 percent match, with the sequence of the holotype, leaving no doubt about the identification.

The lichenological records concentrate on the Alps and Apennines, where three lichenicolous fungi of the genus Sclerococcum received particular attention. Sclerococcum athallinum, a minute discomycete specialized on the lichen Baeomyces rufus, is new to Veneto from the Carnic Alps at 2000 metres. Sclerococcum saxatile, known only in its teleomorphic state and growing on thalli of Pertusaria flavicans, is new to Val d’Aosta and confirmed for Piemonte after records dating back to the nineteenth century. Sclerococcum sphaerale, an anamorphic parasite of Lepra corallina, is new to Val d’Aosta, Piemonte, Lombardia and Toscana. These records trace a Holarctic distribution that thins towards the south, and the authors note that an earlier Ligurian record of S. saxatile actually refers to a different species, illustrating how host identity remains the decisive diagnostic character in this difficult group.

Other lichen records carry conservation weight. Thelopsis flaveola, an inconspicuous microlichen restricted to old-growth forest stands and included in the Italian Red List of epiphytic lichens as Critically Endangered, was found on the bark of Fagus sylvatica in a beech forest on Mount Timpone di Viggianello in Calabria at 1630 metres. Xylopsora caradocensis, listed as Endangered in the same Red List, is new to Emilia-Romagna from dead chestnut wood in the Modena Apennines. Lecanora albella, a crustose species with a marked affinity for smooth beech bark, is new to Abruzzo, and its apparent decline in Italy may be attributable to misidentification with the morphologically similar Glaucomaria subcarpinea. Candelariella coralliza, a boreal-montane to arctic-alpine species typically found on siliceous rocks and often on isolated boulders used as bird perches, is new to Basilicata, as are Catapyrenium daedalum and Cladonia coccifera from the same southern Apennine province.

Collectively, the contribution documents new records or confirmations for the algal genus Cladophoropsis, the bryophyte genera Bryum, Cinclidotus, Dicranella and Pulvigera, the fungal genera Ascocoryne, Calycina, Echinoderma, Hohenbuehelia, Laccaria, Lasiosphaeria, Leucocoprinus, Neodasyscypha, Propolis, Psathyrella and Sclerococcum, and the lichen genera Acarospora, Bryoplaca, Caloplaca, Candelariella, Catapyrenium, Cladonia, Lecanora, Lepra, Monerolechia, Mycobilimbia, Pertusaria, Pycnora, Spilonema, Thelopsis and Xylopsora. The series, now at its nineteenth instalment, operates as a distributed early-warning system for Italian cryptogamic diversity: each record is submitted electronically to regional coordinators for algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens, with texts limited to 1000 characters. The result is a steadily accumulating dataset that turns casual field observations into verifiable range extensions, and it demonstrates that the frontiers of European botany now lie not in distant expeditions but in the wheat fields of Mantova, the torrents of Liguria, the peat bogs of the Graian Alps and the beech forests of Calabria.

Subject of Research: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 19

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 19

Article References: Ravera, S., Vizzini, A., Cogoni, A., Totti, C., Aleffi, M., Benesperi, R., Bianchi, E., von Brackel, W., Buffa, G., Cancellieri, L., De Giuseppe, A. B., De Mei, S., Di Nuzzo, L., Dovana, F., Fačkovcová, Z., Fascetti, S., Gheza, G., Guazzini, L., Guttová, A., … Tretiach, M. (2025). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 19. Italian Botanist, 19, 119-142. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.19.154467

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.19.154467

Keywords: Notulae, Italian, flora, algae, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, scientific research

The stonewort Chara gymnophylla is a headline for Calabria, where a small population was found in June 2023 along a disturbed trail in the Parco della Biodiversità Mediterranea near Catanzaro, at 260 metres. The plants were heavily incrusted with calcite and showed a condensed habit with shortened internodes, dense ecorticate branchlets bearing long unilateral bract-cells and conjoined gametangia. According to the current taxonomic treatment, the species is distinct from Chara vulgaris in having corticate branchlets with bract-cells and gametangia only between and at the top of the upper corticate segments, and distinct from Chara squamosa in having a tylacanthous axial cortex with short solitary spine cells. Previously known in Italy from Veneto, Liguria, Umbria, Lazio, Toscana, Sicilia and recently Abruzzo, the species now extends its regional footprint to the far south.

Chara squamosa itself delivered a broader surprise: a June 2025 population in a temporary alkaline oligotrophic pond at 1853 metres in Stelvio National Park, Valdidentro, in Sondrio, is the first record for Lombardia and, more broadly, for central-northern Italy. The pond sits on silty substrate of a fluvial terrace along the stream Acqua del Gallo, in contact with alpine pioneer Caricion bicoloris-atrofuscae formations characterized by Carex microglochin and Carex simpliciuscula. Until now the species was known in Italy only from Sicilia, Sardegna and Calabria. Two records of the red alga Hildenbrandia rivularis add Trentino-Alto Adige and Emilia-Romagna to its map, one in the River Brenta at Novaledo and one at the spring Nove Fontane on Monte Nero near Bedonia at 1509 metres. This shade-loving, epilithic red alga tolerates oligo- to eutrophic and saprobically unaffected to moderately affected waters, and historical records from Veneto, Toscana, Lake Garda and the central Apennines had never been formally published for the two new regions despite earlier spring surveys.

The desmid Pleurotaenium trabecula and the filamentous green alga Spirogyra neglecta are both new for Calabria and, in the case of the desmid, for southern Italy as a whole. Pleurotaenium trabecula turned up in August 2025 in a pond within a Calabrian pine forest in the Aspromonte at 1320 metres, used for the repopulation of the Apennine yellow-bellied toad. Spirogyra neglecta was collected in September 2025 in a puddle-fed pond at the base of a fountain near Pellaro, at 120 metres. The species is distinguished from the similar Spirogyra ternata by zygospore orientation and carries three chloroplasts making 2.5 turns of the cell. It is widespread across Europe from Britain to Ukraine, but in Italy only a pre-twentieth-century herbarium specimen from Piemonte existed on GBIF; the new collection is the first preserved specimen entirely in alcohol and therefore suitable for modern evaluation.

Among the bryophytes, the most emotionally resonant record concerns Buxbaumia viridis, the green shield-moss, a small epixylic species protected in Europe under Annex I of the Bern Convention and Annex II of the Habitat Directive 92/43/CEE. New collections on dead and rotting wood of Norway spruce and silver fir in the Modena Apennines and around Abetone in Pistoia confirm the species for Emilia-Romagna and Toscana after roughly 140 years, since the last original findings date to the nineteenth century. All more recent citations in older literature proved to be non-original references to those same nineteenth-century records. The rediscovery, driven by systematic survey of rotting conifer logs between roughly 1196 and 1545 metres, shows how dormant regional records can hide genuinely persisting populations.

Other mosses tell stories of rarity and taxonomy in flux. Braunia alopecura, classified as Vulnerable in the recent Italian Red List, was confirmed for Piemonte with abundant populations on sunny mafic granulite outcrops in the Ossola Valley, in geographical continuity with Swiss populations in Ticino and Graubünden. Crossidium squamiferum, a submediterranean species with no confirmations in Veneto and Molise since 1968, was refound on a sunny basaltic outcrop near Trissino and on a Molise road embankment; the Swiss Red List estimates a decline of more than 30 percent, although Italy currently classifies it as Least Concern. Dicranum flagellare, a saproxylic moss of rotting stumps, is new for Emilia-Romagna from a chestnut stump in the Modena Apennines and represents the southernmost record in Italy. Flexitrichum gracile, long confused with the related Flexitrichum flexicaule, is new for Abruzzo from plentiful limestone-outcrop populations in the Marsica mountains. In the Dolomites, three recent segregates of the Tortella tortuosa complex, Tortella angustifolia, Tortella commutata var. commutata and the cryophilous Tortella fleischeri, are all new for Veneto from limestone sites between 1870 and 2265 metres, while Ulota coarctata was confirmed for Trentino-Alto Adige on grey alder branches in the cold microclimate of the Lona-Lases valley, a first finding there since a 1904 historical report.

The fungal records combine classical morphology with molecular confirmation. Agaricus boisseletii, a rare species typically associated with cypress litter, was found in November 2023 in a graveyard garden at Arpaise in Benevento beneath Cupressus sempervivens; basidiomes turned wine-red on sectioning, and microscopic examination revealed distinctive catenulate cheilocystidia, making this the first record for Campania and for southern Italy. Coltricia cinnamomea, a funnel-shaped stipitate polypore with a rusty poroid hymenophore, was new for Calabria from the rocky vault of a mine near Mammola among holm oak roots. Cortinarius biriensis, previously known from Estonia and Norway, is new for Liguria from calcareous soil under white hornbeam and hazel; a newly generated nrITS sequence from the voucher shared 651 of 651 nucleotides, 100 percent identity, with the holotype sequence, and a BLAST analysis on the UNITE database returned an environmental sequence with 100 percent identity suggesting the species also occurs in Sicilia. Gliophorus irrigatus, formerly Hygrocybe unguinosa, is new for Calabria from the University of Calabria Botanical Garden among downy oak litter, and the greenhouse-familiar Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, the plant-pot dapperling with tropical origin, was formally recorded for Calabria at the base of an olive bonsai.

Rust and smut fungi added their own southern records. Leucotelium cerasi, a heteroecious rust with a hetero-macrocyclic life cycle, is new for Calabria from winter aconite leaves at Civita; Eranthis hyemalis hosts the haploid spermogonial and dikaryotic aecial stages, while uredia and telia form on Prunus species. Microbotryum majus, an anther smut of Silene otites, is new for Calabria from the Pollino National Park, where it replaces pollen with a powdery black-purple spore mass. Phragmidium sanguisorbae, monophagous on salad burnet, is new for Calabria from leaves collected in January 2025. The non-lichenized ascomycete Phaeocalicium compressulum, a minute stalked colonizer of alder twigs with laterally compressed capitula and no visible thallus, is new for Valle d’Aosta, Piemonte and Liguria from collections on grey alder in the western Alps, its distribution roughly tracking that of its phorophytes. Two lichenicolous Polycoccum species expanded their maps: Polycoccum pulvinatum, a gall-inducer specialized on Physcia dubia and Physcia caesia, is new for Piemonte, while Polycoccum sporastatiae, specialized on Sporastatia lichens of alpine rock faces, is new for Valle d’Aosta and Sardegna and confirmed for Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardia and Piemonte, with most Italian reports dating back to the nineteenth century.

The lichen records carry both conservation weight and a citizen-science flourish. Arthonia granosa, a rare Mediterranean-Atlantic species doubtfully lichenized and mostly found on cork oak, is new for Toscana from the Lago di Burano reserve at sea level and is assessed as Vulnerable in the national Red List. Scoliciosporum pruinosum, an epiphyte of old oaks in humid forests with very low eutrophication, is new for Toscana and listed as Endangered in the Italian Red List of epiphytic lichens. Toninia plumbina, lichenicolous on the lichen Pectenia plumbea with a temperate-Atlantic to humid-Mediterranean distribution concentrated around the Tyrrhenian Sea, is new for Sicilia from the Ficuzza woods and classified as Near-Threatened. Leptochidium albociliatum, a gelatinous small-foliose lichen with white-haired lobes and granular isidia, is new for Toscana from ancient chestnut forest at the foot of Monte Amiata. Melanelia stygia, a circumpolar arctic-alpine lichen of siliceous rocks near and above the treeline, is new for Basilicata from Monte Volturino, as is Synalissa ramulosa from damp limestone at Monte Castello and Cladonia ramulosa from Monte S. Croce. Chaenotheca chrysocephala and Chaenotheca ferruginea, both previously known in Piemonte only from an 1880 record, were confirmed on larch bark in the Graian Alps. Anisomeridium polypori, identifiable in the field by pycnidia bearing a long thin appendage, is new for Campania, and Graphis pulverulenta is provisionally treated as distinct within the uncertain Graphis scripta complex. Rinodina albana is new for Calabria from beech bark, and Trapelia coarctata, a Holarctic early colonizer of siliceous pebbles, is new for Abruzzo thanks to a Facebook photograph spotted by lichenologist Pier Luigi Nimis, who requested a sample to confirm the identification, a vivid example of how citizen science now feeds formal floristic records.

Subject of Research: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 20

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 20

Article References: Ravera, S., Vizzini, A., Cogoni, A., Totti, C., Agostini, M., Aleffi, M., Benesperi, R., Boccardo, F., Bonanno, R., Bonini, I., Cantonati, M., Capuano, A., Catalano, I., D’Aleo, F., De Giuseppe, A. B., Di Donatantonio, M., Di Nuzzo, L., Dose, S., Dovana, F., … Zotti, M. (2025). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 20. Italian Botanist, 20, 125-148. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.20.177501

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.20.177501

Keywords: Notulae, Italian, flora, algae, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, scientific research

The headline discovery concerns a stonewort. Chara globata, a perennial green alga that forms dense submerged meadows in permanent water bodies, has been recorded for the first time in Italy, and indeed for the first time anywhere in western Europe, at the Torbiere del Sebino Nature Reserve near Iseo in Lombardy. The species grows on fine muddy sediments in neutral to alkaline waters under oligo- to meso-eutrophic conditions, from freshwater to slightly brackish environments. In Lake Iseo it was found at depths of three to four metres, forming dense stands alongside Chara globularis and Najas major, a plant community referable to the alliance Charion intermediae. The European Red List of Charophytes assesses C. globata as Near Threatened, and until now it was known only from Croatia, North Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Its appearance in the Italian lake significantly extends the known range of a species already considered at risk across the continent.

The algal records do not stop there. Three species of the desmid genus Closterium, delicate single-celled algae with gracefully curved cells, were newly documented in Calabria. Closterium aciculare, a tolerant species that adapts well to eutrophic waters, turned up in the sediment of an irrigation tank at Motta San Giovanni, while C. dianae was collected from a Sphagnum carpet near a spring at Oppido Mamertina. More striking still is Closterium karnakense, found in an irrigation tank at Macellari with alkaline water and a conductivity of 780 microsiemens per centimetre, indicating a high concentration of dissolved salts. The species was originally described from a salty lake in Egypt and has never before been reported in Italy in the scientific literature. It closely resembles C. dianae but lacks the end-pore and carries a folded chloroplast that leaves the cell extremities empty.

From the Venice Lagoon comes another first for the Mediterranean Basin. Ulva capillata, a tubular green seaweed with filigree thalli that form dense mats on hard substrates such as stones and mussel shells, was collected in the intertidal zone of the Lido as early as 2019 and initially deposited in the herbarium simply as Ulva sp. A recent comparison of the DNA barcode region tufA showed a one hundred percent match between the Italian voucher and the holotype sequence of the species. Until now U. capillata was known in Europe only from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium, making the Venetian record a remarkable north-to-south jump for a species apparently at home in colder Atlantic waters.

The bryophyte section of the contribution is the largest, and it mixes good news with warnings. Buxbaumia viridis, a small epixylic moss that grows on logs in an advanced state of decay, was found for the first time in Basilicata, in a protected old-growth forest with long ecological continuity on Monte Cozzo Ferriero. The species is protected under Annex I of the Bern Convention and Annex II of the Habitats Directive, and it is listed as Near Threatened in the recent Italian Red List. Dicranum muehlenbeckii, a rare snow-bed moss recorded in all Alpine regions except the Valle d’Aosta, was finally documented there at 2,250 metres on the Colle del Piccolo San Bernardo, where it is listed as Endangered nationally. Geheebia gigantea, another Red List species assessed as Endangered, appeared for the first time in Friuli Venezia Giulia in the Carnic Alps.

Not all bryophyte news is reassuring. Campylopus introflexus, the most widespread invasive moss in Europe, has now reached Friuli Venezia Giulia, found on damp sand at Lignano Riviera. The species originates from the southern hemisphere, where it still occurs in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America. It was imported into England in 1941 and spread from there across most of Western Europe, invading anthropogenic habitats. The first Italian record dates back to 1956 in the Villa Maria Park in Ischia, probably introduced with exotic plants cultivated in the park, and the species has since spread to thirteen administrative regions. Its arrival in yet another region underlines how thoroughly biological invasions have penetrated even the moss layer of the Italian landscape.

Some records are rediscoveries rather than firsts. Crossidium crassinervium was confirmed for Sardinia more than 185 years after Giuseppe De Notaris first reported it in the hills around Cagliari in 1838. In Liguria, two calcicolous mosses of the genus Flexitrichum were confirmed within current regional borders for the first time in more than 160 years, the only previous Ligurian record of F. flexicaule coming from Colle di Tenda, a locality now lying on the border between France and Piedmont. Grimmia orbicularis was likewise confirmed in Liguria more than eighty years after the last record. Cladonia peziziformis, a reindeer lichen relative, was rediscovered in the Val Bisagno near Genoa, close to collection sites worked by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century lichenologist Camillo Sbarbaro, confirming the species after more than fifty years and correcting an erroneous modern record in the process.

The fungal records reveal how much remains unknown even in well-studied groups. Three species new to Calabria, Clavaria falcata, Inocybe griseolilacina and Lepiota grangei, were all found within the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria in Rende, a reminder that unexpected biodiversity can surface in managed landscapes. More spectacular are the lichenicolous fungi, specialized parasites that live on lichens. Tremella lichenicola, which induces conspicuous dark galls on the crustose lichen Violella fucata, was recorded in Italy for the first time, from the Carnic Alps and the Ligurian Alps. Tremella phaeophysciae, which forms brownish galls on Phaeophyscia orbicularis, was also reported for the first time in the country. Phacopsis lethariellae, a very rare parasite restricted to the host lichen Lethariella intricata and previously known in Italy from a single Calabrian locality, was found at two sites in Basilicata, its blackberry-like black galls up to twice as wide as the host’s branches making it easy to spot in the field.

Several of the parasitic Tremella records came not from fresh fieldwork but from the re-examination of historical herbarium specimens collected by Josef Hafellner between 1954 and 2001, with labels written in German. Tremella cetrariicola, confined to the lichen Tuckermannopsis chlorophylla, was newly documented for four regions from specimens gathered decades ago, and Tremella hypogymniae, restricted to Hypogymnia physodes, was added to three more. The pattern illustrates a quiet revolution in Italian biodiversity science: museum drawers and herbarium folders, revisited with modern taxonomic knowledge, can yield new regional and national records without a single new field trip. Because the hosts are widely distributed in the Italian Alps, researchers expect the parasites to turn up in further regions, even though they are certainly not common.

The lichen section rounds out the picture with a cluster of discoveries from the Colli Berici near Vicenza, where a single July 2025 excursion by Michele Tretiach and Simone Ceseri yielded six species new to Veneto, including the euendolithic Bagliettoa steineri, which lives inside hard compact limestone, and Gyalecta thelotremella, an inconspicuous species whose new collections extend its range to northern Italy for the first time. Elsewhere, Polyblastia sendtneri, a circumpolar arctic-alpine species of exposed subalpine habitats, was recorded for the first time in southern Italy on the limestone pastures of Mount Timpone di Viggianello in Calabria, and the recently described Swinscowia endolithea, previously known only from southern France and the Trieste coast, appeared on shaded limestone in Veneto. Taken together, the twenty-first instalment of the series shows that Italy’s cryptic flora, from stoneworts to lichen parasites, is still being mapped in real time, and that careful fieldwork, DNA barcoding and the patient re-reading of old herbarium labels remain among the most productive tools for discovering it.

Subject of Research: New distribution records of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens in the Italian flora

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 21

Article References: Isocrono, D., Cogoni, A., Vizzini, A., Totti, C., Aleffi, M., Armeli Minicante, S., Benesperi, R., Boccardo, F., Boemo, A., Bonanno, R., Bonifazio, C., von Brackel, W., Briozzo, I., Canali, G., Cancellieri, L., Cantonati, M., Casalino, D., Ceseri, S., Cos, D., … Vannini, A. (2026). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 21. Italian Botanist, 21, 173-194. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.21.196260

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.21.196260

Keywords: Italian flora, algae, bryophytes, fungi, lichens, biodiversity, floristic records, Chara globata, Ulva capillata, lichenicolous fungi, invasive moss, Italy

The motivation is stark. Synthetic pesticides, including organophosphates, carbamates, organochlorines, and pyrethroids, have long been the default tool for protecting crops, but their overuse carries serious consequences. According to figures cited from the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization, roughly three million people suffer pesticide poisoning each year and around 200,000 die, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Chronic exposure has been linked to endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, type 2 diabetes, cancers, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, infertility, and leukemia. In the environment, residues degrade water quality, kill non-target organisms such as bees and earthworms, damage soil biodiversity, and drive pest resistance, which in turn demands ever-higher doses.

Against this backdrop, the global biopesticide market, valued at 5.75 billion dollars in 2022, is projected to reach 17.57 billion dollars by 2030, growing at roughly 15 percent annually. Algae occupy a distinctive niche within this expansion because they are photosynthetic biofactories that secrete an enormous range of secondary metabolites under stress. The review organizes these into several major classes. Terpenoids, the largest class of natural products with more than 50,000 identified structures, are synthesized in algae via the methylerythritol phosphate pathway in the chloroplast and the mevalonate pathway in the cytosol. Red algae are particularly prolific producers, and sesquiterpenes and monoterpenes from Cladophora and Chaetoceros have shown insect-repellent effects by acting on insect sensory organs.

Alkaloids, nitrogen-rich heterocyclic molecules produced mainly by dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria, induce severe oxidative stress in target pests, generating reactive oxygen species that damage DNA and trigger programmed cell death. Compounds such as 12-epi-hapalindole E isonitrile from Fischerella, calothrixin A from Calothrix, and saxitoxin from diatoms illustrate the chemical arsenal. Phenolic compounds, including phlorotannins and bromophenols abundant in seaweeds, target metabolic enzymes and cell membranes in pathogens while simultaneously priming plant defense pathways. Polyketides, built by polyketide synthases through condensation and reduction reactions, account for roughly a quarter of known bioactive compounds from marine macroalgae and include herbicidal and antifungal agents such as cryptophycins from Nostoc. Peptides, whether assembled by non-ribosomal peptide synthetases or ribosomally and modified afterward, add antimicrobial and nematocidal potency, although their sensitivity to degradation remains a formulation challenge.

The mechanisms of action are genuinely multi-target, which matters because single-site toxicity is what drives rapid resistance in conventional pesticides. Algal compounds disrupt pest neurology and metabolism, destroy microbial cell membranes, inhibit photosynthetic electron transport in weeds, and interfere with quorum sensing, the chemical communication system bacteria use to coordinate infection. Cyanobacterin from cyanobacteria disrupts photosynthetic electron transport in pea chloroplasts, while Fischerellin A from Fischerella muscicola suppresses fungal pathogens including Pyricularia oryzae and Phytophthora infestans. Cyanobacterial metabolites such as microcystin-LR inhibit protein phosphatases PP1 and PP2A, key regulatory enzymes, and anabaenopeptins block zinc-dependent carboxypeptidases. Indirectly, algal polysaccharides elicit systemic plant resistance through jasmonic acid and salicylic acid signaling and strengthen cell walls via the phenylpropanoid pathway.

The biological evidence spans every major pest category. On the antibacterial front, Dunaliella salina hexane extracts rich in beta-carotene reduced disease incidence in Pseudomonas syringae-infected tomato plants by 65.7 percent and severity by 77 percent in in vivo assays, while soft rot symptoms in treated tomato and zucchini fruits fell to 5.3 and 12.6 percent compared with 90.6 and 100 percent in controls. Against fungi, Nostoc ethanolic extracts completely inhibited Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in tomato, and a large screening of 280 microalgal strains found that 45 percent inhibited at least one phytopathogenic fungus or oomycete, with cyanobacteria showing the highest activity at 64 percent. Sulfated polysaccharides such as carrageenans, fucoidans, and ulvans block viral adsorption and entry, protecting plants against cucumber mosaic and tobacco mosaic viruses by eliciting immunity rather than direct toxicity.

Nematode and insect control show equally striking results. Dry powders from the seaweeds Spatoglossum variabile, Stokeyia indica, and Melanothamnus afaqhusainii reduced gall formation and blocked root penetration by the root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita in eggplant and watermelon, in some cases matching the commercial nematicide carbofuran. Stoechospermum polypodioides caused nearly 80 percent mortality in Meloidogyne javanica, the highest among 21 species tested. In insects, halogenated monoterpenes from the red alga Plocamium telfairiae killed 80 percent of German cockroaches, and a petroleum ether extract of Nostoc muscorum showed an LC50 of just 155.22 ppm against the devastating fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda. As herbicides, the rare sugar 7-deoxysedoheptulose from Synechococcus elongatus blocks the shikimate pathway, the same target as glyphosate, inhibiting cyanobacteria, yeasts, and land plants alike.

What sets this review apart is its willingness to confront the economics. Techno-economic analyses for algal biopesticides are scarce, so the authors built conceptual scenarios for a 1000-liter cultivation system run over ten cycles. A conventional biorefinery using synthetic medium cost 6,792 dollars in operating expenses but generated only about 82 dollars of biopesticide revenue, a clear failure. Replacing 75 percent of the medium with wastewater cut operating costs to roughly 306 dollars while boosting biomass productivity to 2.41 grams per liter, yet a single-product strategy still fell short. Only a multi-product biorefinery, co-extracting pigments, antioxidants, and biopesticides from the same biomass, approached commercial viability, generating over 900 dollars across ten cycles and buffering the economics against yield fluctuations. Earlier work cited in the review supports the concept: Chlorella thermophila grown in dairy wastewater yielded both a biopesticide effective against rice blight pathogens and a 28 percent biocrude oil yield from the residual biomass.

The obstacles to commercialization remain formidable. Large-scale algal cultivation demands enormous quantities of water and nutrients; extraction often relies on expensive technologies and organic solvents; algal extracts can be unstable under field conditions of heat, light, and rain; and their slow, sometimes inconsistent action discourages farmers who need rapid knockdown. Regulatory pathways add another layer of complexity, with the United States Environmental Protection Agency requiring less data under FIFRA than the European Union does under Regulation EC 1107/2009, where biopesticides face data requirements comparable to those for synthetic chemicals. There is no universal regulatory model, and the resulting fragmentation slows global commercialization. The authors also caution that many laboratory results, particularly antibacterial and antiviral findings, rest on in vitro assays with model organisms rather than plant pathogens, and that resistance development in target pests has rarely been systematically tested.

The review’s conclusion is measured rather than triumphal. Algal biopesticides are unlikely to displace established products such as Bacillus thuringiensis or spinosad in the near term; instead, their most realistic role is as complements within integrated pest management, where their multifunctionality, simultaneous pathogen suppression, immune priming, and stress tolerance enhancement, offers the greatest value. The authors call for substantial field trials, CRISPR-based engineering of algal strains to boost specific compounds, nano-formulations to improve stability and targeted delivery, synergistic extract cocktails, and genomic and metabolomic profiling to identify biosynthetic pathways. If those pieces come together, the humble photosynthetic organisms that have thrived in oceans and ponds for billions of years may finally take their place in the farmer’s toolkit, turning wastewater into crop protection and helping agriculture wean itself off its most toxic chemistry.

Subject of Research: Algal bioactive compounds as multi-target biopesticides for sustainable crop protection

Article Title: Algal bioactive compounds for next-generation biopesticides: a multi-target resource for sustainable pest management

Article References: Adetunji, A. I., Ojwach, J. D., Goswami, R. K., Rawat, I., & Bux, F. (2026). Algal bioactive compounds for next-generation biopesticides: a multi-target resource for sustainable pest management. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 33(30), 15179-15210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-026-38228-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11356-026-38228-3

Keywords: algae, biopesticides, cyanobacteria, seaweeds, sustainable agriculture, crop protection, terpenoids, alkaloids, phenolic compounds, techno-economic analysis, integrated pest management, wastewater cultivation

The scale of the challenge is matched by the scale of the opportunity. Photosynthetic protists, particularly algae, are responsible for producing around half of the world’s oxygen, making them foundational to the very habitability of the planet. Other protists graze on diverse microorganisms, regulating microbial communities and supporting ecosystem health in soils, oceans, and freshwater systems alike. Their influence extends into human affairs in less welcome ways as well: certain protists spread devastating diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness, while harmful algal blooms can damage marine ecosystems and the economies that depend on them. Understanding these organisms at the genomic level is therefore not an esoteric pursuit but a matter of environmental, agricultural, and medical consequence.

Why, then, have protists lagged so far behind bacteria, plants, and animals in genomic research? The answer lies in their extraordinary diversity. Protists deviate from nearly every standard biological assumption that makes working with model organisms straightforward. They exhibit an immense range of cell structures, chemistries, genetic makeups, and evolutionary histories. Some possess genomes of bewildering complexity, others have diverged so far from the canonical genetic code that routine analytical tools fail them entirely. This variety makes culturing, sequencing, and analysing protists inherently difficult, and it means that protocols developed for one lineage often fail spectacularly when applied to another. The result is a vast proportion of biodiversity that continues to be overlooked, simply because the technical machinery of modern genomics was not built with these organisms in mind.

Professor Neil Hall, Director of the Earlham Institute, framed the problem in stark terms. Despite representing the largest share of eukaryotic diversity, protists remain poorly classified and understudied, he noted, with their immense and largely unexplored diversity leaving a significant blind spot in our understanding of life on Earth. He acknowledged that the community has made good progress in addressing some of the technical challenges, but warned that if these bottlenecks are not continually overcome and the solutions scaled up, a vast proportion of biodiversity will continue to be overlooked. The new investment is designed precisely to move from incremental progress to systematic, scalable solutions.

The partnership brings together complementary strengths from across Europe. Alongside the Earlham Institute, the collaboration includes the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), the Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa (CCAP), and Aalborg University in Denmark, uniting international expertise in protist culturing, single-cell genomics, and long-read sequencing. The project will address technical challenges and bottlenecks for sequencing protists from two sources: bulk cultures maintained in laboratories, and single cells isolated directly from the environment. This dual approach reflects a recognition that many of the most interesting protists have never been brought into culture at all, and that environmental sampling is the only way to reach them.

The Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa, housed at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, manages one of the world’s largest and most taxonomically diverse protist culture collections. Within the project, CCAP will provide researchers with stable cultures of key protist lineages, enabling them to scale up biomass and enrichment, and will contribute expertise in developing ecologically informed cultivation methods. Drawing on existing knowledge and success stories from across the protist community, the researchers will begin with ten major classes of protists before scaling up their efforts, testing existing protocols across species to compare, optimise, and evaluate successes in extraction, cell lysis, and DNA amplification methods. This comparative, systematic approach is intended to replace the ad hoc trial-and-error that has characterised much protist genomics to date.

The SAMS contribution extends well beyond the established collection. Dr David Green, Principal Investigator in Molecular Microbiology at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, explained that SAMS researcher Dr Frederik De Boever has developed a new cultivation approach based on how these organisms live in nature. That ecologically grounded strategy has led to the creation of a unique research collection including more than 50 genera from some of the least understood groups of protists, such as Provora, centrohelids, telonemids, rhodelphids, kathablepharids, and heterotrophic Paulinella. Together, Green noted, the CCAP and SAMS collections cover an exceptionally wide range of evolutionary diversity, giving scientists a powerful resource for exploring how these organisms evolved and function, and one that is likely to lead to many important and exciting discoveries.

The Earlham Institute arrives at the collaboration with a proven track record of extracting genomic surprises from non-model organisms. Its researchers have previously revealed fascinating diversity and evolution among protists, including species harbouring previously unknown Legionella bacteria, and unique divergence in the DNA code itself, findings that underscore just how radically these organisms can depart from biological convention. Through its high-performance sequencing platforms and technical skill in scalable short-read and long-read workflows, together with single-cell sequencing and analysis, Earlham scientists will work with SAMS to optimise cell lysis and DNA extraction methods, identified as one of the major technical bottlenecks in the field. Breaking open protist cells without destroying their genetic material is far harder than it sounds when cell walls, scales, and chemistries vary wildly across lineages.

Meanwhile, the collaboration with Aalborg University targets the frontier of cultivation-independent genomics. Ramunas Stepanauskas, Professor of Single Cell Genomics at Aalborg University, described single-cell genomics as a key technology for recovering the genomic blueprints of these dominant yet elusive eukaryotes, most of which remain uncultured. According to Stepanauskas, the project will advance cultivation-independent genome recovery from unicellular eukaryotes, unlocking the fundamental biology, evolutionary history, and biotechnological potential of this vast and underexplored component of the planet’s biota. The ability to sequence the genome of a single cell plucked directly from seawater or soil, without ever growing it in a laboratory, promises to open windows onto lineages that have never been seen under controlled conditions.

Open science and a collaborative culture sit at the heart of the undertaking. Knowledge and skills exchange across all partners, at all stages of the workflow, is designed to ensure that learnings are shared and that methods and protocols are cross-validated across disciplines. The ambition reaches beyond the four institutions involved: by equipping the wider research and innovation community with improved pipelines, culturing resources, and technical protocols, the project aims to deliver increased reproducibility and to enable successful international protist sequencing projects for years to come. As Professor Hall put it, the partners are excited to be bringing this community together to drive forward improvements in the technical challenges facing the field. If the collaboration succeeds, the invisible majority of eukaryotic life may finally begin to receive the genomic attention its diversity demands, with consequences ranging from new industrial enzymes and sustainable agricultural tools to a fundamentally richer map of the tree of life.

Subject of Research: Protist genomics and single-cell sequencing technology development

Article Title: Major investment to unlock the potential of protist research

Article References: Major investment to unlock the potential of protist research. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: protists, genomics, single-cell sequencing, Earlham Institute, SAMS, CCAP, Aalborg University, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, long-read sequencing, algae, eukaryotic diversity, biomanufacturing