Dr Kare Liimatainen

Fungi are immensely important to our ecosystems but only a few percentages of global fungal diversity are known. My contribution to this problem is to concentrate on the key issues on taxonomy working with pace and with a large-scale focus as well as using the latest methods. Firstly, I am studying the higher-level classification of fungi using the latest phylogenomic approaches, i.e. targeted sequence capture. For species level taxonomy, I aim to improve the current workflows to efficiently describe new taxa.

I also heavily invest in stabilizing the nomenclature by sequencing type specimens. Finally, I am doing large scale DNA barcoding of fungarium specimens to produce reliable regional checklists for example for conservation purposes.

Currently I am focusing on global Cortinariaceae, Malagasy Marasmineae and UK fungi. The projects which I would be passionate to contribute to in the near future are:

• A mass-scale sequencing and curation of our Fungarium’s type material
• Creating databases for reliable AI-based species recognition

• PhD, University of Helsinki, 2013