Morphological and phylogenetic analyses of Toniniopsis subincompta s. lat. (Ramalinaceae, Lecanorales) in Eurasia

Abstract

In recent years, several species that have long been considered to belong in Bacidia s. lat. have been transferred to other genera such as Bellicidia, Bibbya, Scutula, and also to Toniniopsis, accommodating species previously placed in Bacidia and Toninia. One of its widespread species, Toniniopsis subincompta, can be recognized by its thinly granular thallus, dark brown to black apothecia, green epithecium, red-brown hypothecium, and bacilliform ascospores. However, it shows considerable variation in thallus structure, and coloration of apothecia, hypothecium and exciple. We sequenced 20 specimens of T. subincompta to investigate whether there is phylogenetic support for the delimitation of species in accordance with the variability of the observed characters. For phylogenetic analyses, we used newly generated sequence data from the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (nrITS), mitochondrial small subunit (mtSSU) and DNA-directed RNA polymerase II subunit (RPB2). Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses, as well as three species delimitation programs, provided consistent evidence that T. subincompta forms two separate lineages, to be recognized at the species level. The complex nomenclature of T. subincompta (basionym Lecidea subincompta) shows it to be a synonym of Bellicidia incompta. For the most common taxon previously called Bacidia (Toniniopsis) subincompta, the new combination T. separabilis is made, rather than proposing a conserved type for Lecidea subincompta. Toniniopsis dissimilis is newly described to accommodate the less common taxon. Toniniopsis dissimilis is characterized by a predominantly wrinkled to warted to subsquamulose thallus; generally grey-brown to dark brown apothecia, often with a lighter margin; a dark brown hypothecium, frequently gradually merging into the coloration of the exciple below and the lateral part of the exciple attached to the hymenium; a mostly colourless rim and lateral part of the exciple. The closely related T. separabilis is characterized by a thallus of mostly single or contiguous ±loose granules, often forming short, coralloid, isidium-like bulges; darker apothecia, with a margin mostly of the same colour or darker than the disc; a comparatively thinner hypothecium easily separated from the exciple below. The rim and lateral part of the exciple often contain either a blue, brown or mixed blue-brown colour in the upper part or along the whole margin. Lectotypes of Bacidia vegeta, Lecidea bacillifera f. melanotica and Secoliga atrosanguinea var. affinis (the synonyms of T. separabilis) are selected. Cyanotrophy and the occurrence of albino morphs in T. separabilis are discussed.

Multilocus-phylogeny of the lichen-forming genus Bacidia s. str. (Ramalinaceae, Lecanorales) with special emphasis on the Russian Far East

“…Micrographs of cross-sections were taken on a Zeiss Axioplan with an attached AxioCam 512 Color camera and processed with the Zeiss ZEN 2.3 (blue edition) image software. Macrographs of external characters were taken on a Leica Z6 Apo microscope (with a ×1.0 Planapo lens; Leica, Germany) with a Sony Alpha 6400 camera (Sony, Japan) attached and equipped with a StackShot Macro Rail (Cognisys, USA) as detailed in Gerasimova et al (2021). A single image was mounted from 40-100 serial images using Helicon Focus v.7 software (Helicon, USA).…”

“…The alignment with nrITS, nrLSU, mtSSU, RPB1 and RPB2 was subjected to Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (RAxML and IQ-TREE) analyses for the single and concatenated data sets separately, as implemented in Gerasimova et al (2021).…”

Four new and two resurrected species of Bacidina from Sweden, with notes and a preliminary key to the known Scandinavian species

“…Instead, I list the currently known original material below, all of which has been reviewed and found to correspond to the current usage of Bacidina phacodes , with one exception: The collection from ‘München' (L 0064171), listed in the protologue (and cited by Ekman 1996a, p. 133), is very poor and probably represents an unpigmented specimen of Toniniopsis separabilis (Nyl.) Gerasimova & A.Beck (Gerasimova et al 2021). See also B. lignicola , which has historically been included in B. phacodes .…”

Updates to the list of Estonian lichenized, lichenicolous and allied fungi

“…Gerasimova & A. Beck. -The species was recently recorded as new for Estonia (Gerasimova et al, 2021) Toniniopsis separabilis is characterized by a thallus consisting of single or contiguous ±loose granules, often forming short, coralloid, isidium-like bulges; pale orange, grey-brown, dark brown to black apothecia, and thin dark brown hypothecium, easily separated from the exciple below. The rim and lateral part of the exciple often contain either a blue, brown or mixed blue-brown colour in the upper part or along the whole margin (Gerasimova et al, 2021, Figs 2B & D, 3B, D & F, 4B, 5).…”

“…Additional information on the distribution in Estonia is provided for recently described Toniniopsis separabilis (Nyl.) Gerasimova & A. Beck (Gerasimova et al, 2021).…”