doi:10.29203/ka.2020.502 Karstenia, Volume 58 (2020), Issue 2, pages 316–373 CHECKLIST www.karstenia.fi Myxomycetes of Russia: a history of research and a checklist of species Bortnikov F.M.1*, Matveev A.V.1, Gmoshinskiy V.I.1, Novozhilov Yu.K.2, Zemlyanskaya I.V.3, Vlasenko A.V.4, Schnittler M.5, Shchepin O.N.2 , Fedorova N.A.2, 6 1 Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Abstract Biology, Leninskie Gory 1–12, Moscow 119991, Russia 2 Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy The main objective of this paper is to provide an of Sciences, Laboratory of Systematics and overview of the history and the level of research Geography of Fungi, Prof. Popov Street 2, on biodiversity of myxomycetes in Russia. The first St. Petersburg 197376, Russia doubtless mention of myxomycetes in Russia dates 3 Volgograd State Medical University, back to the 18th century. Since then, numerous stud- Pavshikh Bortsov Square 1, Volgograd 400131, Russia ies on myxomycete diversity in different regions of 4 Central Siberian Botanical Garden, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia have been published. Yu.K. Novozhilov sum- Zolotodolinskaya, 101, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia marized all accumulated data by publishing a list of 5 Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University 304 species in 2005. However, new data on species of Greifswald, Soldmannstr. 15, Greifswald D-17487, diversity, biogeography, and ecology of myxomycet- Germany es have been published in recent years. Recent re- 6 Saint Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya search aims to fill this gap. This paper includes 321 emb. 7–9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia sources, including studies published after 2005 and several works absent in previous reports. A full list * Corresponding author: of 455 myxomycete species found in Russia includes [email protected] references to all literature sources. The analyzed da- tabase consists of more than 14 600 records in the Keywords: Amoebozoa, bibliography, biodiversity, database, geographical distribution, literature review, “publication-region-species” format. Additionally, Palearctic, slime molds our research includes a detailed historical overview of the myxomycete studies in Russia. We hope that Article info: our information system, also available online at Received: 06 August 2020 https://russia.myxomycetes.org/, will create a solid Accepted: 02 October 2020 foundation for future studies of myxomycete biodiver- Published online: 07 December 2020 sity in Russia, particularly in the understudied regions. Corresponding Editor: Nikki Heherson A. Dagamac 317 Introduction (Loeselius 1654, 1703), that might have actually been Lycogala epidendrum (Rostafiński 1874). An assessment of myxomycete species diversity in The first report of myxomycete collection in Russia is especially relevant due to its vast territory the territory of modern Russia in 18th century was with various landscapes and terrestrial biomes such made by Johann Christian Buxbaum (head of the as tundra, taiga, broad-leaved forests, dry and wet Apothecary Garden in St. Petersburg), who worked subtropics, steppes, and deserts. It should be noted at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1721–1729 that myxomycete studies of these biomes in Russia and provided the first fairly accurate description of are still restricted to a limited number of sites (No- the St. Petersburg Governorate flora. His work (Bux- vozhilov 2005). However, many new data on species baum 1740) included an illustration of Lycoperdon diversity, biogeography, and ecology of myxomy- sanguineum sphaericum (Lycogala epidendrum (L.) cetes have been published in recent years. These Fr.), although the location was not indicated for this studies are based on the herbarium collections of specimen. The next mention of myxomycetes was myxomycete fruiting bodies (sporocarps) collect- discovered in the manuscript of Stepan Krashenin- ed over decades in the field and/or obtained using nikov Flora ingrica, which was edited and published the moist chamber culture technique, as well as on in 1761 by David de Gorter. In this publication, he data from metagenomic analyses, a method that noted two species: Mucor embolus L. (presumably has lately been used to reveal the hidden diversity of a species of Arcyria or Stemonitis) and Lycoperdon myxomycetes (Shchepin et al. 2017, 2019a,b). epidendrum L. (Lycogala epidendrum (L.) Fr.), col- Our study aims to analyze the myxomycete lected in the vicinity of St. Petersburg (Gorter 1761). distribution in Russia based on all available bibli- In 1799, the Russian botanist Grigory Fedorovich ographic sources and compile an exhaustive list of Sobolewski published Flora Petropolitana, where he species found in each region accompanied by a ref- reported 13 myxomycete species for the Petersburg erence base of the sources used. Governorate, although it is impossible to provide We did not aim to perform a full critical revi- reliable modern synonyms for six of these species sion of all available literature sources on myxomy- (Sobolewski 1799, 1802; the second publication in- cete biodiversity, since it would demand additional cludes the same material, but in Russian). There are efforts. This list was compiled to aid scientists in only a few reports of myxomycetes in 18th-century searching for the required bibliographic sources, floristic publications (Pallas 1771, 1773, 1788, 1794; as well as to save some lesser-known works from Falk 1786; Georgi 1790, 1800; Stephan 1792). These “scientific oblivion”. We also urge all researchers to studies can be referred to as a starting point for the refer to the indicated primary sources in order to study of myxomycete diversity in Russia. avoid spreading possible mistakes that are almost In the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least 30 inevitable in large biodiversity reviews like this. publications included data on myxomycetes. These studies covered the vicinity of Moscow (Martius 1817; Bucholtz 1897; Heyden 1899; Hennings 1903, 1904, 1906; Dokturovskiy 1905; Mosolov 1906) and St. Petersburg (Weinmann 1836; Rosanoff 1868; Ros- Myxomycete studies in Russia tafiński 1874, 1875; Grimm 1896), as well as Smo- lensk (Jaczewski 1893, 1895), Kaluga (Rostafiński The earliest mention of myxomycetes in the ter- 1874), Chernigov1 (Borščow 1869), Novgorod (Tran- ritory of modern Russia might probably belong zschel 1901), Ufa (Schell 1883) and Kazan Gover- to the German botanist, Johannes Loeselius. His norates (Shiliakow 1889), North Caucasus (Hollós works considering plants of Prussia, which part has 1902, 1905; Filarszky 1907), Samland (now a part of become the Kaliningrad region, included a brief the Kaliningrad region) (Hennings 1895), Eastern description on the taxon Fungus non vescus XXXI Lapland (Karsten 1882), Crimea (Léveillé 1842), Si- 1 Chernigov Governorate included a large section of the modern Bryansk region 318 beria (Thümen 1878, 1880a,b, 1881; Saccardo 1880), bibliographic sources, Yu.K. Novozhilov published and Transbaikalia (Karsten 1906). an identification key for myxomycetes of Russia (No- In 1907, Arthur Arthurovich Jaczewski pub- vozhilov 1993). This monograph remains thus far the lished the first monograph in Russian devoted ex- main guide to myxomycete identification in Russia. clusively to slime molds (Jaczewski 1907). In this The identification key contains information on 232 work, he compiled the results of previous research- species, which only amounts to approximately 50% ers and provided a list of more than 100 species of of the total number of species currently known in slime molds with identification keys. Additionally, a Russia. Additionally, the moist chamber culture tech- large section of this monograph focused on various nique (Novozhilov et al. 2000) has become a common aspects of slime mold biology. This substantial pub- technique of myxomycete species diversity studies. lication remained the most important and, in fact, These studies and publications have stimulated in- the only comprehensive source of data on myxomy- terest in the field of myxomycete research in Russia. cetes in Russia for 86 years, until 1993. As a result, eight Ph.D. dissertations on myxomycete Before the 1980s, fewer than 20 studies were biodiversity were written within the last two decades. published that included information on the diversity A scientific community of researchers studying of myxomycetes. These publications addressed the taxonomy, ecology, phylogeny, and biogeography of myxomycete biota of the Northern European Russia myxomycetes has formed in different regions of Rus- (Lebedeva 1933), the former territories of Finland, sia. The researchers currently involved in the study that are now part of the Leningrad and Murmansk of the myxomycete diversity in Russia are Yu.K. No- regions (Hintikka 1919), the territories of modern vozhilov, O.N. Shchepin, I.S. Prikhodko, and N.A. Fe- Nizhny Novgorod region (Murashkinskiy 1911; Jav- dorova (St. Petersburg); M. Schnittler (Greifswald, oronkowa 1914), the Kursk and the Belgorod regions Germany); V.I. Gmoshinskiy, A.V. Matveev, F.M. Bort- (Benike 1915), Siberia (Lavrov 1927, 1929, 1931; Kill- nikov, N.I. Borzov, E.S. Gubanov, and A.A. Soldaten- ermann 1943; Beglianova & Kattsyna 1973; Petrenko kova (Moscow); I.V. Zemlyanskaya (Volgograd); 1978; Eliasson & Lundqvist 1979), Kamchatka (Tran- A.V. Vlasenko and V.A. Vlasenko (Novosibirsk); A.A. zschel 1914), and the southern Far East (Naoumoff Shirokikh (Kirov); A.N. Lebedev (Tver); G.M. Melku- 1914; Bunkina & Koval 1967; Bunkina