Abstract. Rosa rugosa Thunb. is an invasive alien plant which was introduced from East Asia to Europe in the 19 th century. Over the decades it has spread along the Finnish coast, including the archipelagos of the Baltic Sea. The shrub grows particularly along sandy beaches, stony shores and seashore meadows. There it leads to serious changes in coastal ecosystems and replaces native plant species. This paper presents the distribution and habitat preferences of R. rugosa in and near Archipelago Sea National Park in SW Finland. We identified 205 stands in the study area, 58% of them in protected areas. Systematic inventories do not cover the whole study area, so it is likely that dozens of stands remain undiscovered. Stands of the species were concentrated on the outer islands, where the archipelago's most characteristic flora and fauna occur. Data on the shore type and area of all stands were collected. The total area covered by R. rugosa was 7277 m 2 before control work started in 2008. The largest stand occurred on Örö Island, covering ca 2500 m 2 before its eradication, and the median size of all stands was 6 m 2 . Five of the six largest stands were on sandy beach, but stony shore was the most common habitat type.
Driftwood is woody debris that is floating on the sea or brought onto the shore by the sea. It can have a natural origin but often it originates from human activities. Driftwood has a significant ecological role as a microhabitat for a large range of species. Dead‐wood‐associated aphyllophoroid fungi on driftwood have been studied rather little globally, and there are hardly any studies conducted in the Baltic Sea. We studied the diversity and ecology of polypores and corticioids growing on driftwood (man‐made logs) on the shores of the Finnish SW‐archipelago. In total, 394 driftwood logs were surveyed for visible fungal sporocarps. We found altogether 145 species (1023 records) of which approximately three‐fourths were corticioids. The driftwood logs hosted several rare and noteworthy species, such as one new corticioid species, 16 nationally rare species, and 40 new species to the region. The five most common species accounted for one‐third of all observations, whereas 82 species (11% of all records) were recorded only once or twice. Larger logs hosted, on average, more species compared to small‐diameter logs. The mean number of species increased significantly when comparing the logs in the first and the middle stages of decay. Our results show that driftwood logs can host a wide variety of species and they provide an important substrate for many dead‐wood‐associated fungi, including species of conservation concern and species with restricted ecological requirements. Driftwood hosted several species that have not been previously found in the archipelago forests, and the logs clearly enrich the fungal diversity in the area. Our results encourage to increase dead wood for fungi in coastal forests where it has been dramatically decreased as a result of strong hemeroby.
Six myxomycete species new to the Åland Islands are presented: Comatricha
elegans, Cribraria
intricata, Didymium
minus, Hemitrichia
clavata, Licea
variabilis and Trichia
favoginea. The record of Cribraria
intricata is the third in Finland. Specimens were collected in September 2014. Altogether the number of myxomycete species found from the Åland Islands is now 55.
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