Introduction

This WEB-page presents the complete summary of data on the fungi recorded up to present time on the territory of Russian Arctic situated northwards to the polar limits of forest zone and to the East from the coast of the Barentz Sea and the White Sea, that is the territory occupied by polar desert, tundra and partly forest tundra.

The adjacent mountain systems and highlands with mountain tundra vegetation (Khibiny Mountains, Polar Ural and Kolyma and Koryak highlands) are also included in this territory. Such limits of Russian Arctic are accepted in the edition “Arctic Flora of the USSR”(1960-1986) (Tolmachev, 1956, 1960).

To the present time 1640 species (except yeasts and soil fungi) have been recorded on this territory and included in the present list. If the limits of Russian Arctic are those as proposed in the project “Panarctic Flora” (Yurtsev et al., 1978) that is not including the territories of northern Kola Peninsula, some regions of Koryakia and south of Chukhotka Peninsula then the number of fungi species will decrease on 20-30 %.

The paper presents the list of fungi species recorded up to 1998 in the Russian Arctic with the indication of their occurrence, host plants or habitats, collection date and collector’s name. The herbarium number and name of the herbarium where the sample is preserved are given to the samples of species studied more completely. For the species not available for checking only occurrence and references for more detailed information are given.

For the purpose of reference usage convenience the text contains full surnames of authors (without any abbreviations) and date of paper publication. The species names are followed only by those synonyms that are mentioned in the literature on arctic mycoflora.

The term “fungi” is used in its traditional for mycologists sense, that is including flagellate forms, though in the modern biologi there is a strong tendency to refer he latter to the unicelled or mycelial protists.

The system accepted in the 8th edition of Dictionary of Fungi by Ainsworth and Bisby (Hawksworth et al, 1995) served as the taxonomic background for the present paper. But we should be aware of the circumstance that the complete unification of the systems seems to be not possible.

Some deviations from the mentioned system were made for deuteromycetes that are presented according to the system accepted in the 7^th edition of the Dictionary of Fungi (Hawksworth et al, 1983). The exception was made for some groups of Agaricales sensu lato and some others. Abbreviations of authors’ names correspond to the paper “Authors of Fungal Names”(Kirk, Ansell, 1992).

The purpose of the book is to review the available literature and to supplement it with the original data of the authors. The authors are aware of the fact that the considerable number of identification problems can not be solved without herbarium material revision.

In many cases it was not the subject of the present paper. In taxonomic aspect different groups of fungi are studied erratically. Critical evaluation concerns Ascomycetes and Deuteromycetes for the less extend and therefore the data on these groups is more compilative.

The taxonomy of all groups included in this paper reflects the modern level of their systematics knowledge. The most studied groups are the orders Agaricales sensu lato, Uredinales, Ustilaginales, Erysiphales, Myxomycota, groups of lichenophylic fungi and some others.

For the purpose of convenience the data on fungi occurrence is given in 16 large geographical regions of the Russian Arctic. The regions correspond to some extend to those accepted in the “Arctic Flora of the USSR” because the distribution of fungi depends considerably on the distribution of the plant substrate.

But incomplete and poor knowledge of fungi geography on the territory of Russian Arctic doesn’t allow to use the regioning of “The Arctic Flora of the USSR” in full extend.

These 13 geographical regions don’t reflect any mycofloristic patterns and are accepted only provisory. Scientific mycofloristic subdivision of the Russian Arctic is assumed to be the subject of far future.

Alongside with the data on the distribution of fungi in 13 regions of the Russian Arctic the information about the fungi distribution in other regions of the Arctic (arctic Canada, arctic Alaska, arctic Fennoskandia, Spitzbergen, Iceland and Greenland) is also included.

I. V. Karatygin has worked out the structure of the book and indexes, made a critical review of Basidiomycota ( classes Teliomycetes, Ustomycetes and order Exobasidiales) and also Ascomycota, Oomycota and Deuteromycota. During some years he has been creating out and completing the data base on mycoflora of the Russian Arctic.

The critical review of all other orders of Basidiomycota (excpt orders Ustilaginales, Uredinales and Exobasidiales) was made by E.L. Nezdoiminogo.
Ju. K. Novozhilov has made collections and critical revision of materials on Myxomycota and prepared this check-list for the puplication in Internet.
M.P. Zhurbenko has made collections and critical revision of the groups of lichenophilic fungi.

The authors collective prepare the essay of the Russian Arctic mycoflora researches.