Licea eremophila, a new myxomycete from arid areas of South America

Abstract

A new stipitate species of myxomycete of the genus Licea is described based on material from arid areas in Argentina and Chile. It was isolated from moist chamber cultures and found fruiting on field collections, usually on the same substrate, Puya sp. (Bromeliaceae). It differs from all described species in the genus in that it has stipitate sporocarps with dehiscence by defined preformed platelets and a smooth inner peridial surface. The new species has polyhedral, yellow spores with a uniform thick spore wall and dense warts except on irregularly dispersed raised bands with fewer warts, visible by SEM, an ornamentation not previously observed in the genus. Life-cycle events are described and illustrated, from germination to sporulation, based on moist chamber and agar cultures. The morphology of the myxomycete specimens was examined with scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy, and both light and SEM micrographs of relevant details are included.

Myxomycete diversity of the Patagonian Steppe and bordering areas in Argentina

“…It now appears that their presence in arid and semi-arid environments is more widespread than previously imagined, to a large degree due to the funding of the study of the warm drylands of America such as the Atacama Desert , the Monte Desert and Tehucán-Cuicatlán Valley in Mexico ). Many new species have been described (Lado & al., 1999Estrada-Torres & al., 2001Mosquera & al., 2003;, 2010a, 2012, highlighting the importance of myxomycetes in these extreme arid environments, in spite of their dependence on water to complete their life cycle.…”

Biodiversity of Myxomycetes from the Monte Desert of Argentina

“…They represent 72 species from 22 genera, of which the genera Dianema and Macbrideola and 38 species, are new to Argentina, an increase of almost 22% to the country catalogue Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2010b). Among these 38 species, 11 are new for South America, 5 for the whole Neotropical region and 4 species are new to science, one described herein, Macbrideola andina, and three recently described based on material from this survey, Didymium infundibuliforme , Perichaena calongei , and Licea eremophila (Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2010a). This brings the total number of myxomycete species known from Argentina to 211, and from this desert area the results represent 8% of the number of species known worldwide (Lado, 2005(Lado, -2010, a notable number for such a dry environment.…”

Myxomycete diversity in the coastal desert of Peru with emphasis on the lomas formations

“…Some species are even shared with those found in North American arid areas such as Diderma acanthosporum and Perichaena luteola . However the shared species between the three South American deserts include Echinostelium arboreum, Licea succulenticola or Physarum licheniforme (Lado & al., , 2013, and species hitherto known only from South American deserts such as Licea eremophila and Physarum atacamense (Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2010a;. The striking difference between the species found in Central Chile and the study area, where 87% of the species are different, could be due to the clearly Mediterranean vegetation of the former favouring the development of foliicolous species such as Didymium chilense Estrada, Lado & D. Wrigley, Didymium comatum (Lister) Nann.-Bremek., Didymium eximium Peck, Didymium laxifilum G. Lister & J. Ross and Physarum newtonii T. Macbr.…”

“…with a uniform thick wall and each sporocarp forms from a colourless to yellow protoplasmodium. In South America only known from the arid lands of Argentina (Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2010; and Chile (Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2010a;Lado & al., 2013 This species usually develops on succulent plants, but has also been found on leaves and leaf bases. It is distributed throughout the arid regions of Mexico (Mosquera & al., 2003;Lado & al., 2007;Moreno & al., 2007;Salazar-Márquez & al., 2014;Lizárraga & al., 2015), Brazil (Bezerra & al., 2014), Ecuador (McHugh, 2005), Chile (Lado & al., 2007(Lado & al., , 2013, Argentina 2014) In South America only previously recorded from Ecuador and Chile (Lado & al., 2013).…”

“…Research carried out in the Patagonian steppe registered 133 different species (Lado & al., 2014), almost the 15% of the total number of species known worldwide. These arid regions have become even more interesting because of the number of new species that have been discovered and described from them (Lado & al., 1999(Lado & al., , 2007(Lado & al., , 2013(Lado & al., , 2014Estrada-Torres & al., 2001, 2009Wrigley de Basanta & al., 2008b, 2009, 2010a, 2015. These new species represent four different orders, and the genera Cribraria, Didymium, Licea, Macbrideola, Perichaena and Physarum. Since the publication of the first records by Rudolphi (1829), only 31 species of myxomycete had been published from Peru, until a recent paper increased the number to 80 (Rojas & al., 2011), but almost all of these records were from the tropical forests of the Amazon basin, to the East of the Peruvian Andes.…”