Lichenological collections and relevant databases.

Lichen herbarium

Lichenological collections of the University of Tartu (TU) include over 2 500 species and 65 000 specimens at present. The lichen herbarium is divided into three sections: Estonian herbarium, general herbarium and geographical collections. Within each section, materials are arranged in the alphabetical order of genera, and within the genera, in the alphabetical order of species.

The Estonian herbarium of TU is the largest collection of Estonian lichens in the world containing about 26 000 specimens. Managing this collection has been the priority task of the lichenological working group of the University of Tartu in the last years during which all the specimens have been verified and arranged in their correct places according to the modern taxonomy in the course of preparing a revised checklist of lichenized and allied taxa of Estonia (Randlane & Saag 1999). Major collections of lichens collected in Estonia are preserved, besides TU, also in several other local or foreign herbaria, e.g. in H, LD, RIG, S, UPS. Other local lichen collections of noteworthy number are located in Tallinn. Herbarium of the Eurouniversity contains about 10 000 specimens of Estonian lichens; herbarium of the Tallinn Botanic Garden - 4000-6000 specimens; herbarium of the Institute of Ecology, Tallinn University of Educational Sciences - about 3000 specimens; herbarium of the Estonian Nature Museum - about 900 specimens. The total number of specimens of Estonian lichens in all herbaria altogether is approximately less than 50 000.

The oldest specimens in the Estonian herbarium in Tartu date from the end of the XIXth century (collections by Andreas Bruttan). Materials collected by a Russian lichenologist Konstantin Mereschkowski and the famous Finnish specialist Veli Räsänen in the beginning of the XXth century are also deposited in this section. During the last fifty years the most extensive lichen collections have been raised by Hans Trass. Lichen flora of different regions of Estonia is not equally explored -the most numerous materials have been collected from the western islands, while north-eastern and south-western regions are the least studied.

The general herbarium contains ca 20 000 specimens today. In the future this section should include all the other collections except materials collected from Estonia. During the last year the geographical collections from America, Australia and Europe as well as from the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) have been added to the so-called comparison herbarium which forms the core of the general herbarium. Earlier the latter consisted mainly of type materials, different exsiccatae and other foreign collections maintained by exchange. Lately the general herbarium has been supplemented by a valuable collection (more than 3500 duplicate specimens) of lichens from the southern hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea etc.). In the entire section of general herbarium, total revision of nomenclature using the latest checklists of different countries was carried out recently.

The third section - geographical collections - will be abolished during the next year by joining its materials to the general herbarium. Today it is still kept separately due to technical reasons. It contains ca 19 000 specimens altogether, including 10 000 specimens from Siberia (mainly areas in the vicinity of lake Baical) and 9 000 specimens from the Russian Far East (Khabarovsk and Primorye regions, the peninsulas of Kamchatka and Chukotka, islands of Wrangel, Sakhalin and Kurile etc.).

The databasing of herbarium specimens in the section of Estonian lichens was started in 1996. The computer program BRAHMS (Botanical Research And Herbarium Management System) has been used for that purpose. BRAHMS is a DOS-based information system for storing and processing botanical data which operates under Microsoft FoxPro database management system. A module known as RDE (Rapid Data Entry) which is linked to BRAHMS has been used to enter various information connected with the herbarium specimens. In our database ca 40 fields of RDE files are filled for every lichen specimen (e.g. order number, name of the family, name of the genus, name of the species, authors of the species, name of the infraspecific taxon, country of the locality, major area i.e. county, minor area i.e. community, gazetteer i.e. geographical name of the locality, longitude and latitude of the site of collection, ecological group based on the substratum, collector, determiner and his notes, etc.). In fields marked as `memo', longer text can be saved.

The mapping program DMAP (developed by A. Morton) can be used successfully together with BRAHMS to produce distribution maps and coincidence maps.

The maps can be printed in colour or black and white, or they can be exported as high resolution images to other software to be incorporated into texts. The distribution data for mapping can be entered into either a text file, a spreadsheet, a database, or a biological recording software package. The distribution data can consist of grid references, a variety of other metric co-ordinates, or latitude+longitude.

Type specimens of lichenized taxa located in TU

Exsiccate material of lichenized taxa located in TU

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