Article

During the past two years, considerable progress has been achieved towards the preparation of a checklist of lichens for Mediterranean countries. Checklists for numerous operational geographical units are available and compilations have started for further countries. The existing checklists, which are being continuously updated, are available via the Internet. Standardization of the data and the preparation of databases, some of which are already accessible on the World Wide Web, is part of ongoing activities. An important step towards a synthesis is the development of a thesaurus of synonyms which will facilitate the linking of checklists and databases following different taxonomic concepts into a single information system.