Myxomycetes of Subantarctic Macquarie Island

An expedition to subantarctic Macquarie Island was carried out during the period of late January to early May of 1995 with the objective of documenting myxomycete biodiversity. Collecting on the island yielded 412 field collections, with another 14 collections were obtained with the use of the moist chamber culture technique. A total of twenty-six species representing 13 genera was recorded. This is the largest set of data yet available on the myxomycetes associated with any high-latitude area of the Southern Hemisphere. Prior to the expedition, only a single species was known from Macquarie Island. The purpose of this paper is to describe this expedition from the viewpoint of the author.