Possible house-keeping and other draft proposals to clarify or enhance the naming of fungi within the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN)

Abstract

The 10th International Mycological Congress (IMC10), to be held in August 2014, will be the last before the 19th International Botanical Congress (IBC) scheduled for July 2017 at which changes in the ICN will be adopted. IMC10 will therefore be the last opportunity for mycologists as a whole to debate and propose clarifications and other changes they would like to see made in the ICN which was adopted in Melbourne in 2011. In order to stimulate debate, draft proposals are presented here on ten topics: terminology of the new lists; protection against unlisted names; priority for sexual morph typified names; removal of exemptions for lichen-forming fungi; extension of sanctioning to additional works; extending conservation to additional ranks; names with the same epithet; registration of typifications subsequent to valid publication; sequenced epitypes; and generic homonyms in other kingdoms. It is anticipated that the draft proposals presented here will be abandoned, refined, or supplemented by debates at the Genera and Genomes symposium in Amsterdam in April 2014 and during IMC10, and also by other comments received from individual mycologists or other bodies. Formal proposals will then be prepared for presentation and decision at the IBC in 2017.