Macrobiotus hannae: A new species of Tardigrade from Podlasie Province, Poland.

Tardigrades, or Water Bears, are a distinctive group of small (usually less than 1 mm) invertebrates related to Arthropods, Nematodes and Velvet Worms. They have a simple segmented body with four pairs of limbs, and are remarkably resilient to environmental stress, being able to withstand extremely high and low temperatures, complete desiccation and even exposure to vacuum. To date about 1200 species of Tardigrade have been described, from marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments, with about a dozen more being described each year.

In a paper published in the Turkish Journal of Zoology on 28 March 2018, Bernadeta Nowak and Daniel Stec of the Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research at Jagiellonian University, describe a new species of Tardigrade from Podlasie Province in northern Poland.

The new species is named Macrobiotus hannae, in honour of Hanna Tutaj, a PhD student at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Jagiellonian University. The species is described from 139 individuals and 146 eggs, raised in culture from an initial sample collected from some ground-covering Moss in a deciduous forest in Podlasie Province. Adults of this species ranged from 341 to 760 μm in length, were white in colour and hermaphroditic. Juveniles are transparent and eggs white.

Macrobiotus hannae in dorsoventral view. Scale bar is 50 μm. Nowak & Stec (2018). 

The new species is very similar in appearance to the previously described Macrobiotus joannae, which was first identified in Australia in 1983, and has subsequently been reported in Russia and Italy, though the two species could be distinguished using genetic methods. This leads Nowak and Stec to question whether the European reports of Macrobiotus joannae are in fact erroneous, and are really specimens of Macrobiotus hannae.

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Coprinopsis rugosomagnispora: A new species of Inky Cap Mushroom from Poland.

Inky Cap Mushrooms, or Coprinoids, are saprophytic Fungi (Fungi that feed by breaking down decaying organic material) which produce Mushrooms with gills that liquify as they mature, releasing spores in a black 'ink' that aids dispersal. They were formerly all included in a single genus, Coprinus, until genetic analysis methods revealed that not all Inky Caps shared a common ancestor, resulting in many species being taken out and placed in three new genera, Coprinellus, Coprinopsis, and Parasola. To make matters worse, species tend to be both similar to one another and morpholgcally variable, so it is likely that the described list of species contains both hidden (cryptic) species that have not been recognised, and specimens of the same species described undr different names.

In a paper published in the journal Plant Systematics and Evolution on 28 April 2017, Błażej Gierczyk of the Faculty of Chemistry at Adam Mickiewicz University, Pamela Rodriguez-Flakus of the Laboratory of Molecular Analyses at the Władysław Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Marcin Pietras of the Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation at the University of Gdańsk, and the Laboratory of Symbiotic Associations at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Mirosław Gryc of Ogrodniczki, Waldemar Czerniawski of Skawina, and Marcin Piątek of the Department of Mycology at the Władysław Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences, describe a new species of Inky Cap Mushroom from Poland.

The new species is placed in the genus Coprinus,and given the specific name rugosomagnispora, meaning 'large, wrinkled spores', in reference to its distinctive spores, though it has been confirmed as a separtate species by genetic analysis. Coprinopsis rugosomagnispora forms small Mushrooms, with a cap at most 15 mm across, white in colour with gills that go from white to grey to black before liquifying. The species was found at two locations 450 km apart, in Podlaskie and Małopolska provinces, and is though likely to be present in other parts of Poland and probably other European countries. It was found growing on wet ground in both coniferous and mixed forests.

Basidiocarps of Coprinopsis rugosomagnispora from the Puszcza Knyszynska forest, northeast Poland: (a), (b) general view; (c) lamellae; (d), (e) young basidiocarps; (f) old specimen. Gierczyk et al. (2017).

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