Substrate switches, phenotypic innovations and allopatric speciation formed taxonomic diversity within the lichen genus Blastenia

Abstract

Blastenia is a widely distributed lichen genus in Teloschistaceae. We reconstructed its phylogeny in order to test species delimitation and to find evolutionary drivers forming recent Blastenia diversity. The origin of Blastenia is dated to the early Tertiary period, but later diversification events are distinctly younger. We recognized 24 species (plus 2 subspecies) within 6 infrageneric groups. Each species strongly prefers a single type of substrate (17 species occur on organic substrates, 7 on siliceous rock), and most infrageneric groups also show a clear substrate preference. All infrageneric groups tend to have the Mediterranean and Macaronesian distribution, but some epiphytic species have much larger geographic ranges and some evolved after a long-distance dispersal outside the region. Chlorinated and nonchlorinated anthraquinone chemosyndromes co-occur in apothecia of most species, but the chemotype has been secondarily reduced in some lineages. One infrageneric group has a marked reduction in apothecial size, associated with a substrate shift to twigs. Only seven species have vegetative diaspores; they also produce apothecia but have smaller ascospores. Genome sizes (22-35 Mb in Blastenia) are significantly higher in epilithic species. Within-species genetic variation is low in widely distributed species but high in some epilithic species with small geographical ranges. New taxa are: B. afroalpina, B. anatolica, B. caucasica, B. gennargentuae, B. herbidella subsp. acidophila, B. lauri, B. monticola, B. palmae, B. psychrophila, B. purpurea, B. relicta, B. remota, B. xerothermica, and B. xerothermica subsp. macaronesica. New combinations are: B. festivella and B. subathallina; both names and B. catalinae are lectotypified.

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

“…First reported as new for North America from Lake Clark by McCune et al (2018). Sequences from S39387 are available in GenBank: ITS sequences MF114598; Beta-tubulin MF115104; mitochondrial LSU MF114860 (Vondrák et al 2019 b ). Caloplaca holocarpa (Hoffm.)…”

The use of flow cytometry for fungal nuclear DNA quantification

“…Across fungal species that interact with plants, pathogens (parasitism) and mutualists have larger genomes than saprobes (commensalism) ( [11], lichens [10], culturable filamentous fungi [6] and obligate biotrophic fungi [8], based either on ethanol/methanol:acetic acid fixation of nuclei [10,11] or on the release of nuclei onto a stabilizing buffer [6,8]. However, much is still to be explored, with life-style and small genome sizes posing challenges to the generalization of the available protocols to understudied taxa.…”

“…Otherwise, the protocol by Veselská et al [9], based on a fixation with methanol:glacial acetic acid, DMSO, Triton‐X 100, and EDTA in combination with Tris‐MgCl 2 buffer, is more appropriate for measuring genome size of nuclei obtained from fungal spores, although being more laborious than the chopping procedure. This protocol was modified by Vondrák et al [10] to be used on apothecia of lichen fungi in the genus Blastenia , combining the above‐mentioned fixation procedure with chopping (and subsequent incubation) in Tris‐MgCl 2 buffer. Additionally, Sabatinos and Forsburg [11] developed a protocol for yeast cells, fixing them in 70% ethanol and incubating on sodium citrate buffer with RNase.…”

“…The use of FCM in fungi, namely for nuclear DNA quantification, is still underexplored, as most taxa have not had their genome sizes determined and most of those that had, such estimations were not done using FCM. Some protocols are available and have been optimized for certain groups of fungi, namely yeasts [11], lichens [10], culturable filamentous fungi [6] and obligate biotrophic fungi [8], based either on ethanol/methanol:acetic acid fixation of nuclei [10, 11] or on the release of nuclei onto a stabilizing buffer [6, 8]. However, much is still to be explored, with life‐style and small genome sizes posing challenges to the generalization of the available protocols to understudied taxa.…”

Three new species of crustose Teloschistaceae in Siberia and the Far East

“…Although this character was reflected in the epithet ‘ hexaspora ’, 6-spored asci were observed in numerous Teloschistaceae species (e.g. Vondrák et al 2020). Both C. lacinulata and C. hexaspora are probably closely related to L. aureopruinosa ; however, we are not able to prove this due to a lack of molecular data for these two poorly known species.…”