Biodiversity Data Journal :
Taxonomic paper
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Corresponding author:
Academic editor: Anne Thessen
Received: 02 Feb 2015 | Accepted: 05 Mar 2015 | Published: 09 Mar 2015
© 2015 Panu Kunttu, Elina Varis, Sanna-Mari Kunttu
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Kunttu P, Varis E, Kunttu S (2015) Additions to the myxobiota of the Åland Islands. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e4653. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e4653
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Six myxomycete species new to the Åland Islands are presented: Comatricha elegans, Cribraria intricata, Didymium minus, Hemitrichia clavata, Licea variabilis and Trichia favoginea. The record of Cribraria intricata is the third in Finland. Specimens were collected in September 2014. Altogether the number of myxomycete species found from the Åland Islands is now 55.
Amoebozoa, Biogeography, Myxogastria, Myxomycetes, Slime mold.
Myxomycetes (or Myxogastria) - commonly known as slime molds - form a group of fungus-like eukaryotic microorganisms. However, in systematics they belong to the division of Amoebozoa or they are classified as amoeboid protists (
The myxomycetes constitute a relatively small group around 1000 species worldwide (
Altogether 215 myxomycete species are found in Finland (
The Åland Islands are a large archipelago area between Finland and Sweden in Fennoscandia. The archipelago is situated in the middle of the Baltic Sea (Fig.
Study sites
The study sites were located on the islands north of the Åland main island (Fig.
Data collection
The material was collected in the Åland Islands 30.VIII.-6.IX.2014 by the authors Panu Kunttu and Sanna-Mari Kunttu. Altogether 145 myxomycete specimens were collected. The inventory was made by method of opportunistic sampling of species (
Most of the specimens were identified by Elina Varis and Marja Härkönen helped with few specimens. Voucher specimens are deposited in the Herbarium of Turku University (TUR). Coordinates are given both in World Geodetic System (WGS84) and Finnish National Uniform Coordinate System (UCS), the latter is according to
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Six myxomycete species new to the Åland Islands were found. Four of them - Didymium minus, Hemitrichia clavata, Licea variabilis, Trichia favoginea - were expected to be found from the Åland Islands, because these species are fairly common in Finland and species have been found from many biogeographical provinces around Finland.
The collection of Cribraria intricata was the third record in Finland. Earlier records are from Lohja (Regio aboënsis) and Tampere (Tavastia australis), in Southern Finland. Sporocarps of this species have been found from woody debris (
Probably due to its tiny sporocarp, Comatricha elegans is rarely found species in Finland; it has been found earlier only from two biogeographical province in Finland: Regio aboënsis and Nylandia in Southern Finland.
The Åland Islands are a biogeographically inadequately known part of Finland because of its somewhat remote location from continental part of Finland. In general, occurrence of myxomycetes is poorly known also in many other parts of Finland. The accumulation of knowledge of myxomycetes’ distribution is slow because there are only few researchers in Finland who are specialized on myxomycetes.
There are now 55 species of myxomycetes found in the Åland Islands. Comparing this number of species to other biogeographical provinces in Southern Finland, it is obvious that dozens of species can still be found there. For example, many common species in genera Arcyria, Didymium and Physarum are still undiscovered in the Åland Islands (
We are indebted to docent Marja Härkönen (University of Helsinki) who helped to identify some specimens. Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica is thanked for financial support.
Panu Kunttu collected the material and wrote the manuscript.
Elina Varis identified the specimens and commented the manuscript.
Sanna-Mari Kunttu collected the material and commented the manuscript.