18th Congress of European Mycologists: Conference Report Acta Mycologica Article ID: 55214 DOI: 10.5586/am.55214 Publication History Received: 2020-11-15 Accepted: 2020-11-16 Published: 2021-03-01 Handling Editor Wojciech Pusz; Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Poland; https://orcid.org/0000-0003- 1531-2739 Authors, Contributions All authors contributed to the writing of this report. Funding The event was cofinanced by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education under its objective to disseminate science (contract No. 964/P-DUN/2018) and by the following sponsors: the European Mycological Association, Cybertruffle, Analityk, Biomaxima, Eurx Molecular Biology Products, Genomed and Precoptic companies. Competing Interests No competing interests have been declared. Copyright Notice © The Author(s) 2020. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits redistribution, commercial and noncommercial, provided that the article is properly cited. REPORT 18th Congress of European Mycologists: Conference Report Julia Pawłowska 1,2*, Magdalena Frąc 1,3, Izabela Kałucka 1,4, Małgorzata Ruszkiewicz-Michalska 1,4,5, Sylwia Różalska 1,4, Marta Wrzosek 1,6 1Polish Mycological Society, Poland 2Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Biological and Chemical Research Center, University of Warsaw, Poland 3Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland 4Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Poland 5Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland 6Botanic Garden, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Poland *To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: julia.z.pawlowska@uw.edu.pl The 18th Congress of European Mycologists was held between September 16 and 21, 2019 in Warsaw and Białowieża, Poland. It gathered more than 250 participants from 52 countries from all over the world who presented 77 talks and 176 posters (Hawksworth, 2019; Pawłowska et al., 2019). During the first 3 days, mycologists were meeting in Old Library at the University of Warsaw and they could participate in two offered and six thematic sessions: “From genome to function” (led by Ekaterina Shelest, Germany), “Taxonomy and systematics” (led by Jos Houbraken, The Netherlands), “Fungi in biotechnology” (led by Katarzyna Turnau, Poland), “Fungal interactions” (led by Martin Bidartondo, United Kingdom), “Medical mycology” (led by Michaela Lackner, Austria), and “Fungal diversity” (led by Carrie Andrew, Sweden). Four thematic sessions were organized in Białowieża: “Fungi in primeval forests and other natural habitats” (led by Anders Dahlberg, Sweden), “Hypogeous mycorrhizal fungi” (led by Giovanni Pacioni, Italy), “Fungal conservation” (led by Susana C. Gonçalves, Portugal), and “Data session” (led by Dmitry Schigel, Denmark). Additionally, two workshops were organized in the Białowieża part of the Congress: “Global fungal red-listing” (by David Minter, United Kingdom) and “Biology of Polypores” (by Dmitry Schigel, Denmark). An Acta Mycologica / 2020 / Volume 55 / Issue 2 / Article 55214 Publisher: Polish Botanical Society 1 https://doi.org/10.5586/am.55214 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4914-5182 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9437-3139 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7264-5735 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8901-0552 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1695-5154 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5871-5020 mailto:julia.z.pawlowska@uw.edu.pl Pawłowska et al. / 18th CEM Report open European Council for the Conservation of Fungi (ECCF) discussion forum entitled “Fungal conservation across borders in Europe (and beyond) for the next 4 years – What role for the ECCF?” was also held. The scientific program was also honored by keynote lectures of eminent mycologists: Annegret Kohler (France), David Hawksworth (United Kingdom), Geoffrey Gadd (United Kingdom), Duur K. Aanen (The Netherlands), Dominik Begerow (Germany), Marc-André Selosse (France), Bogdan Jaroszewicz (Poland), and Lynne Boddy (United Kingdom). At a general meeting of the European Mycological Association, a new board was elected, with Izabela Kałucka (Poland) as President, Mitko Karadelev (Macedonia) as Vice-President, Katerina Rusevska (Macedonia) as Secretary, Eske De Crop (Belgium) as Treasurer, Vijai Kumar Gupta (Estonia) as Membership Secretary, Tatiana Semenova-Nelsen (USA) as Publicity & Social Media Officer, Paulo de Oliveira (Portugal) as EMA Webmaster, and Susana C. Gonçalves (Portugal) as Conservation Officer and Chair of the ECCF. The outgoing President, David Minter, was thanked for all he had done for the EMA during his tenure. During the closing ceremony, it was agreed that the next, the 19th Congress of European Mycologists will be organized in Turin, Italy, in 2023. As the motto of the Congress was “Fungi in nature and culture,” a rich program of mycology related, artistic events was proposed, e.g., a photo exhibition “Fungi – Master sculptures of nature,” “Dystopia” – Spatial composition by Hélène Soulier and Ewa Rudnicka, “Anomalium” – Graphics exhibition of Agnieszka Zdziabek, “Broken links” – Performance of Maria Subczyńska. Additionally, two mushroom exhibitions in Warsaw and the 25th Exhibition of Fungi of the Białowieża Forest were also organized. On Tuesday evening, the public lecture “Mycology: A recent weapon in the forensic armory” was given in the Copernicus Science Centre by Patricia Wiltshire (United Kingdom). Finally, common mushroom hunting and iNaturalist.org BioBlitz project were also organized, as a follow up of the GBIF presentation stressing the importance of sharing data on fungal occurrence. In less than 2 weeks, 750 observations and 217 species of fungi from Białowieża Forest (Poland) were recorded. Some collections were also taken for further identification. All these data will be processed and prepared for publication in the Acta Mycologica journal. This will be the first paper opening a new chapter in the journal’s history. Acta Mycologica, as one of the world’s first mycological journals, has decided to join the GBIF initiative to share data on fungal distribution. We hope that such a decision will significantly increase the representativeness of Polish mycological data in international databases and will become a measurable and globally visible effect of the recent Congress. Acknowledgments The event was organized jointly by the Polish Mycological Society and the European Mycological Association and it was co-organized by the Faculty of Biology and Botanical Garden – University of Warsaw; Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection – University of Lodz; Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences; Forest Research Institute; Białowieża National Park; Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences; Faculty of Forestry of the Białystok University of Technology in Hajnówka; and Warsaw Convention Bureau. The Congress was held under honorary patronages of the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland, Marshal of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship, Marshal of the Podlaskie Voivodeship, Mayor of Warsaw, Director of Białowieża National Park, Rector of the University of Warsaw, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and General Director of the State Forests. References Hawksworth, D. L. (2019). MycoNews 2019: Editorials, news, reports, awards, personalia, book news, and correspondence. IMA Fungus, 10(1), Article 23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43008-019-0024-4 Pawłowska, J., Frąc, M., Kałucka, I., Ruszkiewicz-Michalska, M., Różalska, S., & Wrzosek, M. (2019). The XVIII Congress of European Mycologists: Conference report. Journal of Fungi, 5, Article 110. https://doi.org/10.3390/jof5040110 Acta Mycologica / 2020 / Volume 55 / Issue 2 / Article 55214 Publisher: Polish Botanical Society 2 https://doi.org/10.1186/s43008-019-0024-4 https://doi.org/10.3390/jof5040110 Acknowledgement References