November 2011
Building ties with Indonesian mycologists

Otto Miettinen visited two Indonesian universities of Gadjah Mada (in Jogjakarta) and Andalas (in Padang), meeting with mycologists and planning future co-operation.

Photo: inspecting damages of the herbarium building caused by the 2010 Padang earthquake (left), Rigidoporus microporus (right).

11 November 2011
Helsinki, Finland

Wood-decaying fungi: molecular ecology

Dmitry Schigel arranged a meeting, primarily targeted at the researchers and postgraduate students, to review and discuss the past, the present and the future challenges together in an informal atmosphere: programme and PDFs of selected presentations / handouts.
About 70 people from Finland (capital region, Kuopio, Joensuu), Sweden and the UK took part in the event.

25 September - 1 October 2011
Gotland, Sweden

Nordic Mycological Congress

Tea von Bonsdorff-Salminen and Dmitry Schigel took part in the biggest biannual mycological meeting and foray in Fennoscandia.

19–23 September 2011
Lammi Biological Station, Finland

Polypore identification course

A field course for students of Helsinki University on polypores and other wood-inhabiting fungi, with special emphasis on threatened species and the ecology of old-growth forests. Course leader Tuomo Niemelä.

19–23 September 2011
Halkidiki, Greece

XVI Congress of European Mycologists was organized under the auspices of the European Mycological Association (EMA).

Dmitry Schigel chaired the Insect-Fungus Interaction symposium, covering a broad spectrum of interaction types and aspects of ecology and evolution of fungus-insect relationships.

1 August 2011
Hainan Island, China

Giant polypore discovered by by Prof. Yu-Cheng Dai

The fruiting body of Fomitiporia ellipsoidea is up to 10m long, 80cm wide and weighs half a tonne. That shatters the record held previously by a fungus growing in Kew Gardens in the UK. The new giant fungus is thought to be at least 20 years old.
BBC Nature

6 May 2011
University of Helsinki, Finland

PhD dissertation

Otto Miettinen defended his doctoral thesis on the phylogeny of white-rot polypores and corticioids. The examiner was Prof. Urmas Kõljalg from the University of Tartu. Basidiomycete Research Group congratulates!
Photo left to right: Prof. Jaakko Hyvönen, Dr. Otto Miettinen, Prof. Urmas Kõljalg

13–17 April 2011
Konnevesi Research Station, Finland

Fungal systematics and ecology workshop

An advanced course for university students. Main topics: microscopy and identification of Agaricales growing on wood (Ilkka Kytövuori), fungal molecular systematics, and the new 2010 evaluation of IUCN categories of fungal species.

Information and enrolment by 14th March 2011:
Anni Markkanen, anni.e.markkanen(at-sign)jyu.fi

11 March 2011
University of Helsinki

PhD dissertation

Masoomeh Ghobad-Nejhad defended her doctoral thesis on corticioids and polypores in the Caucasus area. The examiner was Prof. Henning Knudsen from the University of Copenhagen. Basidiomycete Research Group congratulates!

Photo left to right: Prof. Henning Knudsen, Prof. Heikki Hänninen, Dr. Masoomeh Ghobad-Nejhad

22 January – 5 February 2011
Edible mushrooms in Mozambique

Marja Härkönen and Tuomo Niemelä visited Mozambique on a pilot study for a project, in which inherited tradition of using wild mushrooms would be studied. We visited the Nampula and Zambezia provinces in the north, and the mozambicans turned out to be real mushroom enthusiasts. The Embassy of Finland in Maputo financed the trip, and project funding is now under consideration.

Photo left to right: Carlos Raimundo (our interpreter), Marja Härkönen, Americo Uaciquete (our project counterpart), Tuomo Niemelä

25 October – 5 November 2010
Polypores of Indonesia

Otto Miettinen visited Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia to inquire possibility for future cooperation in building a fungal herbarium in Papua. Botanical Museum of Helsinki already has a cooperation project with Andalas University, Padang, West Sumatra. Plans to establish a well-curated fungal collection in Padang have been slowed by the Sumatra earthquake September 2009, which severely damaged the new herbarium building.

Photo: Padang field team 2008. Team leader Hernawati in the middle, Otto Miettinen on her right.

30 September – 8 October 2010
Białowieża National Park, Poland

Polypore inventory

Tuomo Niemelä, Juha Kinnunen and Dmitry Schigel collected polypores in the famous Białowieża forest in eastern Poland. Similar trips were made in 2008 and 2009 for an updated check-list of polypores there. A joint project together with researchers from the Białowieża National Park, the Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences (Cracow), and the Institute of Botany, Jagiellonian University (Cracow).

Photo left to right: Juha Kinnunen, Tuomo Niemelä, Dmitry Schigel, and (below) Antrodia sitchensis

1–6 August 2010
IX International Mycological Congress
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK