Since the long-term application of synthetic chemicals as insecticides and the chemotherapy of protozoal diseases have had various negative effects (non-target effects, resistance), research on less harmful biological products is underway. This review is focused on lichens with potential insecticidal and antiprotozoal activity. Literature sources (27) were surveyed from five bibliographic databases and analyzed according to the taxonomic group of the insect, the protozoal disease and the lichen, the type of bioactive compounds (including method of application and mount applied), and the potential bioactivity based on mortalities caused after 24 h of exposure on insects and on parasitic protozoa. Six species of protozoa and five species of mosquitoes, three kinds of larval stages of insects and three protozoa stages were tested. Insecticidal and antiprotozoal effects of crude extracts and seven lichen secondary metabolites (mostly usnic acid) of 32 lichen species were determined. Physiological and morphological changes on parasitic protozoa were observed. Mortality rates caused by LSMs on insect vectors closer to (or somewhat above) the WHO threshold were considered to be insecticides. The results are based on laboratory experiments; however, the efficacy of metabolites should be confirmed in the field and on non-human primates to control the insect vectors and human protozoal diseases transmitted by insects.

Hungarian collections of lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi from Kenya and Tanzania were studied analysing morphological and anatomical characters, as well as secondary chemistry by chromatography (HPTLC). Altogether 39 species of lichen-forming fungi and three species of lichenicolous fungi have been recognized and deposited in VBI. The lichens Bulbothrix kenyana, Chrysothrix xanthina, Lobaria discolor, Parm otrem a durum ae and P. taitae were discovered as new for Tanzania; Usnea abissinica and U. sanguinea are new for Kenya. The first records of the lichenicolous fungi Didymocyrtis cf. melanelixiae, Lichenoconium erodens and Spirographa lichenicola are presented from East Africa.

Of the c. 900 lichen species known from Kenya, 178 belong to the parmelioid clade. Several of these parmelioid taxa require further revisionary studies. An identification key to the species of the parmelioid clade, based on updated nomenclature, is produced to support the practical work in collecting and selecting certain parmelioid lichens for further research. A new combination Parmotrema nyasense (C. W. Dodge) R. S. Egan comb. nov. in Egan et al., Bibliotheca Lichenologica110, 383 (2016) is published here by R. S. Egan.

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