Abstract:

Aims: The compilation of authoritative biodiversity catalogs is of great significance for biodiversity research, resource protection, as well as social and economic development. In the era of rapid development and progress on scientific research, a large number of new species and new distribution records are reported every year. It is very important to summarize the discoveries of new taxa and update the species checklist in time.

Methods: The taxonomic data of newly published fungal names were retrieved and analyzed from the Fungal Names nomenclatural repository.

Results: In 2022, 1,948 scholars have published 4,679 new fungal names all over the world, including 4 new orders, 25 new families, 271 new genera and subgenera, 2,782 new species and intraspecific taxa, 1,433 new combinations, 16 replacement names and 148 invalid or illegitimate names. These new names belonged to 3 kingdoms, namely Fungi, Chromista and Protozoa, 12 phyla, 38 classes, 139 orders, 407 families and 1,205 genera, among which micro-ascomycetes and agaricomycetes have received more attentions. The newly published 2,664 fungal species were discovered from 103 countries and regions in the world. East and southeast Asia were the hottest spots of new species discovery, while China retained the top country for yearly new species discoveries (1,102 species), accounting for 41.37% of the world’s total. Besides, Chinese scholars led the world in research outputs on fungal taxonomy this year. There were 519 Chinese scholars participated in the publications of 1,814 new fungal names, contributing nearly 40% of the world’s total.

Conclusion: After a slight decline in 2021, the number of globally published new fungal names has rebounded to more than 4,500. Although cross-regional communication and collection have been reduced, scholars paid more attention to mining domestic and local resources. For the contribution of Chinese scholars, they have participated in 40% of the taxonomic outputs in 2022, which has significantly increased than last year. With the rapid development of fungal taxonomy, it is equally important to improve the quality of taxonomic research. It is suggested that the new authors should pay more attention to learning and understanding of the nomenclature code to avoid publication of invalid or illegal names.

Key words: taxonomy of fungi, taxonomists, new taxa, nomenclature, China