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The boxelder maple (Acer negundo, Sapindaceae) is one of the most common tree species of the genus Acer natively growing in North America. In the 17th century A. negundo was introduced to Europe as an ornamental plant, and from this point forward it started uncontrolled expansion on new territories, as an alien invasive species (IAS), threatening local ecosystems and human’s safeness. Etiological symptoms of fungal development on boxelders’ seeds and petioles, were observed in 2017 and 2021 in the municipality of Wrocław (SW Poland, Europe), outside of host native occurrence. Morphological analyses combined with multilocus phylogenetic analyses (using rDNA ITS, gapdh, act, tub2, chs-1, and his3 sequences), indicated that isolated strains belong to a new species of Colletotrichum, from the rare Colletotrichum agaves species complex. Name Colletotrichum acericola is proposed for this fungus, after its host on which it was found. It is the second species of the Colletotrichum agaves species complex described from the dicotyledonous host and outside host plants of the family Asparagaceae. Based on phylogenetic analyses and deposited in NCBI-GenBank environmental sequences (ex endophytes of Dalea purpurea and Panicum virgatum in prairies of USA) assigned here to this species, it is likely that Colletotrichum acericola is native to North America and introduced to Europe after its host plant appearance, maybe on nursery material. The possible future invasion of C. acericola on Acer negundo and its spillover to other (native) Acer species in Europe are discussed.

The anthropogenic pressure on the environment depends on the spatial scale. It is crucial to prioritise conservation actions at different spatial scales to be cost-efficient. Using horizon scanning with the Delphi technique, we asked what the most important conservation problems are in Poland at local and national scales. Twenty-six participants, PhD students, individually identified conservation issues important at the local and national scales. Each problem was then scored and classified into broader categories during the round discussions. Text mining, cross-sectional analyses, and frequency tests were used to compare the context, importance scores, and frequency of identified problems between the two scales, respectively. A total of 115 problems were identified at the local scale and 122 at the national scale. Among them, 30 problems were identical for both scales. Importance scores were higher for national than local problems; however, this resulted from different sets of problems identified at the two scales. Problems linked to urbanisation, education, and management were associated with the local scale. Problems related to policy, forestry, and consumerism were more frequent at the national scale. An efficient conservation policy should be built hierarchically (e.g. introducing adaptive governance), implementing solutions at a national scale with the flexibility to adjust for local differences and to address the most pressing issues.

A clade where the most halotolerant fungus in the world – Hortaea werneckii, belongs (hereafter referred to as Hortaea werneckii lineage) includes five species: Hortaea werneckii, H. thailandica, Stenella araguata, Eupenidiella venezuelensis, and Magnuscella marina, of which the first species attracts increasing attention of mycologists. The species diversity and phylogenetic relationships within this lineage are weakly known. In this study two moderately halophilic black yeast strains were isolated from brine of graduation tower in Poland. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on the rDNA ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 (=ITS), rDNA 28S D1–D2 (=LSU), and RNA polymerase II (rpb2) sequences showed that the two strains belong to Hortaea werneckii lineage but cannot be assigned to any described taxa. Accordingly, a new genus and species, Salinomyces and Salinomyces polonicus, are described for this fungus. Furthermore, molecular phylogenetic analyses have revealed that Hortaea thailandica is more closely related to S. polonicus than to H. werneckii. A new combination Salinomyces thailandicus is proposed for this fungus.