Dr. Monica Andrea Garcia Otalora

Research area

• Taxonomy of rust fungi on Solanaceae an other plant plant-pathogenic fungi. 
• Taxonomy and evolution of lichen-forming Ascomycetes with emphasis on Collemataceae family.
• Molecular phylogeny and population genetics of lichen-forming fungi. 

Since 2016 I have been working on the “Deep Digitization of Fungi” program. The program was created in order to digitalize the plant-pathogenic fungus holdings of the Fungarium Z+ZT. It comprises (i) the nomenclature update and taxonomic interpretation of the vouchers, (ii) registration of label information in the online fungarium database, (iii) the imaging of specimen labels, (iv) uncovering type specimens and produce macro and micrographs of the type to provide images of the most relevant micromorphological characters. 

As a sub-project within of the “Deep Digitization of Fungi” program a picture catalogue exclusively for the rust fungi on the nightshade plant family (Solanaceae) was created and published.Thecatalogueoffers the singular opportunity to study and compare all important morphological characters of these rust fungi by some 1400 macro photos and light-micrographs.

For access to fungarium records visit the database of the of thenatural history collections of the ETH Zurich.