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Second Foray 2003
 Robert Lücking (The Field Museum), Harrie Sipman (Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem), Martin Grube (University of Graz, Austria), William Buck (New York Botanical Garden), Susan Will-Wolf, Marie Trest and Matthew Nelsen (University of Wisconsin-Madison) successfully completed the second TICOLICHEN foray to Costa Rica in March and April 2003. Together with Loengrin Umaña, José Luis Chaves, Issac Lopez, Eida Fletes, Ronald Rodriguez, Eduardo Alvarado (INBio) and Daniela Lizano (University of Costa Rica), they visited more than 20 different localities, ranging from lowland dry forest to montane rainforest to paramo, in Palo Verde National Park (Arenal-Tempisque Conservation Area), Tapantí National Park (La Amistad - Pacífico Conservation Area), Los Santos Forest Reserve (Pacífico Central Conservation Area), Cahuita National Park (La Amistad - Caribe Conservation Area), and Corcovado National Park (Osa Conservation Area). All together, they collected some 5,000 specimens (including duplicates), which were mounted, identified to genus level, and databased during a subsequent workshop at INBio. Screening of the material resulted in an estimated total of 500 species, with many further new records for Costa Rica and a set of potentially new taxa. The most spectacular new record is a new species in the genus Dictyonema with smooth lobes and isidioid outgrowths, subsequently described as D. melvinii. No new species has been described in this genus since it was monographed 25 years ago by Parmasto. We also found several fertile crustose forms in that genus which so far are believed to be growth forms of the widespread D. sericeum but which most probably represent autonomous species. Bill Buck (New York Botanical Garden) was very successful in collection rare lichens growing on bryophytes and humus, by crawling for hours with his lens on the ground. Martin Grube (Graz) added a huge amount of Arthoniaceae and other interesting crustose taxa to our collections. As invited specialists, Jolanta Miadlikowska and François Lutzoni from Duke University spent five days collecting Peltigeraceae and their lichenicolous fungi, as well as material for the ongoing AFTOL project.
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