Phylogenetic Diversity of <i>Peltigera</i> Cyanolichens and Their Photobionts in Southern Chile and Antarctica

Abstract

The lichen genus Peltigera has been mainly revised in the Northern Hemisphere, with most species being recorded in Europe and North America. This study assessed the phylogenetic diversity of the mycobionts and cyanobionts of Peltigera cyanolichens collected in Southern Chile and Antarctica, areas in which lichens are extremely diverse but poorly studied. The operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of each symbiont were defined by analyzing the genetic diversity of the LSU and SSU rDNA of the mycobionts and cyanobionts, respectively, and a phylogenetic approach was used to relate these OTUs with sequences previously reported for Peltigera and Nostoc. Among the 186 samples collected, 8 Peltigera and 15 Nostoc OTUs were recognized, corresponding to sections Peltigera, Horizontales, and Polydactylon, in the case of the mycobionts, and to the Nostoc clade II, in the case of the cyanobionts. Since some of the OTUs recognized in this study had not previously been described in these areas, our results suggest that the diversity of Peltigera reported to date in the regions studied using traditional morphological surveys has underestimated the true diversity present; therefore, further explorations of these areas are recommended.

Specialist taxa restricted to threatened habitats contribute significantly to the regional diversity of Peltigera (Lecanoromycetes, Ascomycota) in Estonia

“…A recent worldwide survey of the section Polydactylon identified many previously unrecognized putative species effectively doubling the number of known taxa in the section (Magain et al 2017). These and concurrent findings indicate that biodiversity surveys that rely solely on phenotype characteristics can easily underestimate the true diversity of Peltigera species within a given region or environment (O'Brien et al 2009;Zúñiga et al 2015).…”

Spatial Molecular Architecture of the Microbial Community of a Peltigera Lichen

“…lichens are commonplace in humid environments and are mainly found living on soils in forests and along roadsides (24). Here, we obtained a 1.8-cm by 3-cm piece of Peltigera hymenina lichen, and prior to spatial metabolomics analyses, we first determined its taxonomic composition and the genetic potential to produce small molecules and isolated and cultured microbial members.…”

The future of genomics in polar and alpine cyanobacteria

“…have also been shown to exhibit considerable diversity in maritime Antarctica (Zúñiga et al . 2015 ). Lichen cyanobionts are primarily diazotrophs such as Nostoc and Stigonema , which can also exist as nitrogen fixing symbionts alongside green algal photobionts in tripartite lichens (Rozema, Aerts and Cornelissen 2007 ).…”