1 Norvell & al. • 9th IMC Nomenclature Sessions TAXON 28 October 2010: 2 pp. INTRODUCTION When initially formed in 1971, the International Mycologi- cal Association (IMA) established a Nomenclature Secretariat to address nomenclatural issues of concern to mycologists. This led to a series of proposals on starting points and other matters that were adopted by the XIII International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Sydney, Australia, in 1981, after which the Secretariat was disbanded, its mission accomplished. Nomen- clatural discussions at each subsequent International Myco- logical Congress (IMC) were, for the most part, confined to occasional debates on specified topics. After the Cairns IMC8 roundtable discussion, “Is it time for a Mycological Code of No- menclature?” in 2006, however, support for a separate fungal Code rapidly mushroomed at subsequent regional mycological meetings. During 2009 and 2010, several proposals that would fundamentally change governance of fungal nomenclature were published that will be voted on by delegates to the XVIII IBC in Melbourne, Australia, in July 2011. Because IBCs oc- cur only every six years and because decisions made there are not enacted until 1–2 years afterwards, issues not decided in 2011 would have to wait until 2018 or 2019 to be implemented. This is one reason why mycologists favor settling controversial nomenclatural matters following the more frequent four-year IMC schedule. Over 1750 mycologists attended the 9th International Mycological Congress (IMC9) in Edinburgh on August 1–6, 2010, during which three groundbreaking two-hour long No- menclature Sessions were held on the afternoons of August 3–5. Convener/Rapporteur David Hawksworth (Spain/U.K.), who proposed and planned the Sessions, was assisted at the Congress by Chairman Ron Petersen (U.S.A.), Vice-Chairman Scott Redhead (Canada), Nomenclature Committee for Fungi (NCF) Secretary Lorelei Norvell (U.S.A.), and IBC Nomencla- ture Section Rapporteur-général John McNeill (U.K.). The at- tending IMC delegates contributed to the discussions and voted on fungal nomenclatural proposals with the express purpose of forwarding their opinions to the Nomenclature Section of the Melbourne IBC. The printed Nomenclature Programme (dis- tributed to everyone in the official IMC9 tote-bags) permitted delegates who were unable to attend the Nomenclature Sessions to return their marked 25-item questionnaires to Registration so that all opinions could be counted. As a result, the Edinburgh IMC9 Nomenclature Sessions enabled a broad spectrum of mycologists to express their views on a wide range of topics, vote on already published proposals to amend the ICBN, and, most importantly, demonstrate that an IMC can incorporate effective nomenclatural sessions. PROPOSALS AND ISSUES DISCUSSED DURING IMC9 Each Session was devoted to a specific set of proposals or issues. The August 3 Session was devoted to governance of fungal nomenclature. Two introductory presentations – one by NCF Chairman Vincent Demoulin (Belgium) on retaining fungi in the ICBN and another by Hawksworth on the progress toward one unified code for all organisms – provided back- ground for the open forum. Most attention was paid to Propos- als 016–019, which propose to amend the ICBN to clarify that it covers fungal nomenclature and to modify its governance with respect to names of organisms treated as fungi. Also discussed were Proposals 048–051 to exclude Microsporidia from the ICBN. The session polls showed overwhelming support (with only 1 to 4 negative votes out of 91) for both sets of proposals. Results from all 174 returned paper questionnaires showed that 58% voted that Fungi should not continue to be covered under the ICBN, 71% preferred Fungi to be covered under the ICBN provided it is renamed the “Botanical and Mycological Code” (Prop. 017), 61% felt that fungi should not be covered by a separate mycological Code, and 86% voted that decisions on fungal nomenclature should be made by a Mycological, not Botanical, Congress. The August 4 Session – devoted to mandatory pre-pub- lication deposit of data on new names in a nomenclatural re- pository, electronic publication, type cultures, and illustrations – began with a presentation by Index Fungorum supervisor Paul Kirk (U.K.), who summarized worldwide progress in data-bas- ing taxonomic names of all organisms. After open discussion, delegates voted on Proposals 117–119 to make pre-publication deposit mandatory for valid publication (again with only 1 to 5 negative votes out of 65 total), while the formal question- naire tally showed 86% support for mandatory pre-publication Edinburgh 2010: The 9th International Mycological Congress Nomenclature Sessions Lorelei L. Norvell, 1 David L. Hawksworth, 2 Ronald H. Petersen 3 & Scott A. Redhead 4 1 Pacific Northwest Mycology Service, Portland, Oregon 97229-1309, U.S.A. 2 Dpto. de Biología Vegetal II, Fac. de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Plaza Ramón y Cajal, Madrid 28040, Spain & Dept. of Botany, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. 3 Dept. of Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37920, U.S.A. 4 Biodiversity (Mycology and Botany), Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C6, Canada Author for correspondence: Lorelei L. Norvell, llnorvell@pnw-ms.com