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Heterocyphelium triseptatum is newly recorded from Asia. The species was previously known only from South America and Africa. It was collected from the bark of a broadleaf tree at 35 m elevation in the Tanintharyi Region of southern Myanmar. An unidentified substance was newly detected for this species by thin layer chromatography (TLC). This study demonstrates the phylogenetic position of H. triseptatum in the Lecanographaceae using Bayesian and RAxML analyses of mtSSU and nrLSU sequence data. The close relationship with H. leucampyx within the Heterocyphelium clade was confirmed.

Twelve species of lichens and lichenicolous fungi are reported as new to Fennoscandia. Additionally, we report 19 species as new to Norway. New localites are given for 47 rare or seldom collected species. The new combination Reichlingia anombrophila (Coppins & P. James) Frisch is proposed. Most collections were made in the boreo-nemoral and boreal rainforests during the NBIC funded project Three storied diversity – mapping and barcoding crustose lichens and lichenicolous fungi in the Norwegian rainforests and associated fieldwork in recent years. With the present contribution, we hope to raise awareness on previously neglected groups of lichenised and lichenicolous fungi and encourage further fieldwork in understudied habitats in Norway. Copyright Andreas Frisch et al. 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. Published 2020-02-24 by The Nordic Lichen Society, http://nhm2.uio.no/lichens/NLS.

We report here the draft de novo genome assembly, transcriptome assembly, and annotation of the lichen-forming fungus Arthonia radiata (Pers.) Ach., the type species for Arthoniomycetes, a class of lichen-forming, lichenicolous, and saprobic Ascomycota. The genome was assembled using overlapping paired-end and mate pair libraries and sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 2500 instrument.

Arthonia toensbergii is described from old-growth boreal rainforests in Norway. The new species parasitizes Mycoblastus affinis growing on branches and trunks of Picea abies. It can be recognised among related species by its combination of characters including the adnate, non-aggregated, matt, (brownish-)black ascomata not visibly breaking through the host thallus, 0.07–0.15 µm diam; medium olivish brown epi- and hypothecium without distinct apical caps on the tips of the paraphysoids; hyaline, slipper-shaped, 1-septate ascospores with slight constriction at the septum, 11–14 × 4–5.5 µm; hymenial gels I+ vinose, KI+ sky blue; and a KI+ blue ring in the tholus. Arthonia toensbergii is shown to belong to the Bryostigma-clade by RAxML and Bayesian analysis of mtSSU, nLSU, and RPB2 sequence data. The related species Arthonia parietinaria is reported as new to Norway. Copyright Andreas Frisch & Håkon Holien. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)

In August 2015, the Nordic Lichen Society held its 21st bi-annual meeting and excursion in Steinkjer, Nord- Trøndelag, Norway. During the excursion various habitats, including boreal rainforest, calcareous rocks with pine forest, coastal heath, heavy metal containing rock and montane spruce forest, were investigated. The most interesting findings are recorded herewith. Didymocyrtis pseudeverniae and Unguiculariopsis manriquei are new to Scandinavia, and six species are new to Norway: Absconditella celata, Catillaria aphana, Micarea contexta, Scytinium aquale, Tremella wirthii and Verrucaria sparsiuscula. Notes on a number of red-listed and/or rarely collected species in Norway are also provided. © Nordic Lichen Society

With an increasing demand for forest-based products, there is a growing interest in introducing fast-growing non-native tree species in forest management. Such introductions often have unknown consequences for native forest biodiversity. In this study, we examine epiphytic lichen species richness and species composition on the trunks of non-native Pinus contorta and compare these to the native Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies in managed boreal forests in northern Sweden across a chronosequence of age classes. Overall, we recorded a total of 66,209 lichen occurrences belonging to 57 species in the 96 studied forest stands. We found no difference in species richness of lichens between stands of P. contorta and P. sylvestris, but stands of P. abies had higher total species richness. However, species richness of lichens in stands of P. abies decreased with increasing stand age, while no such age effect was detected for P. contorta and P. sylvestris. Lichen species composition progressively diverged with increasing stand age, and in 30-year-old stands all three tree species showed species-specific assemblages. Epiphytic lichen assemblages in stands of 30-year-old P. contorta were influenced by greater basal area, canopy closure, and average diameter at breast height, P. abies stands by higher branch density and canopy closure, and stands of P. sylvestris by greater bark crevice depth. Differences in lichen species richness and composition were mainly explained by canopy closure and habitat availability, and the greater canopy closure in mature P. abies stands promoted the colonization and growth of calicioid lichen species. Our results indicate that the non-native P. contorta have similar species richness as the native P. sylvestris. The main difference in lichen species richness and composition is between P. abies and Pinus spp. in managed forests of boreal Sweden.

Hintergrund Die Bestrahlung von Erythrozytenkonzentraten geschieht mit dem Ziel, einer so genannten transfusionsassoziierten Graft-versus-Host-Erkrankung (transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease, TA-GvHD) vorzubeugen, die bei bestimmten Patientengruppen von teilungsfähigen, im Blutprodukt noch enthaltenen Leukozyten ausgehen kann. Die Gammastrahlen schädigen dabei aber nicht nur die kernhaltigen Leukozyten, sondern in einem gewissen Umfang auch die kernlosen Erythrozyten. Dieser strahleninduzierte Schaden addiert sich zu den üblichen Lagerungsschäden der roten Blutkörperchen, die während der extrakorporalen Aufbewahrung derzeit unvermeidbar sind. Die Einführung der generellen Leukozytendepletion von Blutprodukten, die in Deutschland im Jahr 2001 erfolgte, konnte zwar das Auftreten der TA-GvHD nicht gänzlich verhindern, die Qualität von Erythrozytenkonzentraten aber deutlich verbessern. Dennoch wurden seither nur wenige Studien durchgeführt, die die Auswirkungen der radioaktiven Bestrahlung auf diese jetzt leukozytendepletierten Erythrozytenkonzentrate erneut evaluierten. Außerdem berücksichtigte keine dieser Arbeiten die Empfehlungen des Europarates oder die der amerikanischen Food and Drug Administration (FDA), die entsprechend unterschiedliche Vorgaben enthalten, bis zu welchem Zeitpunkt Erythrozytenkonzentrate bestrahlt und daran anschließend gelagert werden dürfen. Studiendesign und Methoden Achtzig leukozytendepletierte Erythrozytenkonzentrate, versetzt mit der additiven Lösung SAG-M, wurden, ihrer gewöhnlichen Haltbarkeit entsprechend, 42 Tage lang im wöchentlichen Turnus auf ihre Qualität hin überprüft. Dabei bildeten jeweils 20 von ihnen eine Untersuchungsgruppe. Drei Gruppen wurden entweder an Tag +14, Tag +28 oder Tag +35 nach Blutspende (=Tag 0) in einem dafür vorgesehenen Bestrahlungsgerät mit 30 Gy radioaktiv bestrahlt. Die vierte Gruppe blieb als Referenz unbestrahlt. Die In-vitro-Untersuchungen sämtlicher Erythrozytenkonzentrate erfolgten an den Tagen +3, +7, +14, +21, +28, +35 und +42. Das Untersuchungsprogramm umfasste dabei zu allen genannten Messzeitpunkten die folgenden klinisch-chemischen und hämatologischen Parameter: Kalium, anorganisches Phosphat, Glukose, Laktat, Laktatdehydrogenase (LDH), freies Hämoglobin im Überstand sowie ein Differentialblutbild. Außerdem wurden stets der pH-Wert und die Konzentrationen von Adenosintriphosphat (ATP) und 2,3-Diphospho-Glycerat (2,3-DPG) bestimmt. Ergebnisse Die Gammabestrahlung verursachte eine zusätzliche Schädigung der Erythrozyten. Diese äußerte sich ab dem jeweiligen Tag der Bestrahlung in einer verstärkten Freisetzung von Kalium und LDH sowie einer gesteigerten In-vitro-Hämolyserate im Vergleich zur unbestrahlten Gruppe. Zwei Erythrozytenkonzentrate, die an Tag +14 bestrahlt wurden, überschritten an Tag +42 den für die In-vitro-Hämolyserate geltenden europäischen Grenzwert von 0,80%. Alle anderen Präparate blieben deutlich darunter. Die Konservierung der ATP-Konzentration war in allen vier Gruppen am Ende des Beobachtungszeitraums mit über 50% des Ausgangswertes zufriedenstellend. Schlussfolgerungen Die vorliegende Studie liefert Daten zur In-vitro-Qualität leukozytendepletierter und bestrahlter Erythrozytenkonzentrate. Das Vorgehen spiegelt dabei die Empfehlungen der US-amerikanischen Behörde FDA wider. Gemäß den Empfehlungen des Europarates ist die radioaktive Bestrahlung von Erythrozytenkonzentraten nur bis Tag +14 zulässig, mit einem zusätzlich eingeschränkten Lagerungszeitraum bis maximal Tag +28. Die vorgelegten Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Erythrozytenkonzentrate auch dann die strengeren europäischen Qualitätsstandards erfüllen, wenn sie später als an Tag +14 bestrahlt werden. Dennoch erscheint es sinnvoll zu sein, entgegen den Empfehlungen der FDA, die zulässige Verwendbarkeit bestrahlter Konserven in Abhängigkeit vom Bestrahlungszeitpunkt zu limitieren. Background Irradiation of red blood cell (RBC) concentrates with gamma rays is performed to prevent transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease (TA-GvHD), especially in some risk groups of patients. Besides its designated effect on viable lymphocytes, that is the damage of their DNA and hence their disability to grow up in number, gamma irradiation causes alterations of RBCs, too. These radiation-induced cell lesions add to usual storage lesions and lead to increased leakage of potassium ions, accelerated loss of intracellular purine nucleotides and accelerated in vitro hemolysis. The introduction of general leukodepletion in Germany in 2001 improved the quality of blood products considerably. However, there are only a few studies, which examine the impact of gamma irradiation on these leukodepleted RBC concentrates. Furthermore reported studies reflect neither the current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the European recommendations on timing and subsequent storage. Study Design and Methods We studied 80 leukodepleted RBC concentrates in the additive solution saline-adenine-glucose-mannitol (SAG-M) for their whole shelf-life, that is 42 days, and analysed their in vitro quality parameters once a week. Thereby the RBC concentrates were divided into four groups á 20 units. Three groups were irradiated once with 30 Gy either on day +14, +28 or +35. The fourth group remained as a control unirradiated. The in vitro evaluation was accomplished on day +3, +7, +14, +21, +28, +35 and +42, related on the day of collection (day 0). The following data were collected on each measuring point: free potassium, inorganic phosphate, glucose, lactate, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), cell-free hemoglobin in the supernatant and a complete blood count (including values for hemoglobin, hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and especially on day +3 a count of potentially contaminating leukocytes). Furthermore the pH-value and the concentrations of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) were determined on all of these seven days, too. Results Gamma irradiation provoked leakage of potassium ions and lactate dehydrogenase and an enhanced in vitro hemolysis rate in the irradiated components. From the day of irradiation all of these parameters started to rise in value much faster than the unirradiated control. Two RBC concentrates, both belonging to the group that were irradiated on day +14, exceeded a hemolysis rate of 0.80%, which is the upper limit for the in vitro hemolysis in Europe for the first time on day +42. All of the other units stayed remarkably beneath this value. The preservation of the ATP content was satisfying in all of the four groups, the final mean values were more than 50% of the initial mean values. Conclusions This study provides data on the in vitro quality of leukodepleted RBC concentrates that were gamma-irradiated either on day +14, +28 or +35 after collection. Our current proceeding reflects the recommendations of the FDA. In Europe RBC concentrates should not be irradiated if they are older than 14 days and in addition, their shelf-life is stronger limited in time (day +28). Our results demonstrate that RBC concentrates which were irradiated later than on day +14 still fulfill European quality standards. On the other hand our results remind us not to deregulate the post-irradiation shelf-life completely. It seems more secure with respect to the quality of RBC concentrates to limit their shelf-life after gamma irradiation depending on the day of irradiation.