The extensive geographical range of several species of Teloschistaceae: evidence from Russia

Abstract

The current view of the geographical ranges of lichens is often distorted by overly narrow or overly broad applications of names and by insufficient survey of most regions of the world. Here we present several cases where species of Teloschistaceae formerly thought to be limited to rather small territories in the western or eastern parts of Eurasia are in fact widespread in northern Eurasia. We support our findings with ITS nrDNA data in several new trees showing relationships in the genera Athallia, Calogaya, Caloplaca, Flavoplaca and Gyalolechia. The widespread species have little in common, except that most of them reproduce both sexually and asexually, and we discuss the possible influence of the combined reproduction on geographical range. Calogaya bryochrysion, Calogaya saxicola, Gyalolechia epiphyta and Gyalolechia ussuriensis are new combinations. Calogaya alaskensis is a younger synonym for C. bryochrysion. The generally arctic-alpine Calogaya bryochrysion also occurs on the bark of solitary trees in dry parts of the Altai Mountains. The Australian Flavoplaca cranfieldii is a younger synonym of F. flavocitrina. Gyalolechia epiphyta has been described numerous times, from different regions and substrata, as Caloplaca juniperi, C. laricina, C. tarani, Gyalolechia arizonica and G. juniperina. The name Gyalolechia xanthostigmoidea has recently been used for G. epiphyta, but it represents a distinct taxon. Gyalolechia ussuriensis is closely related to and morphologically indistinguishable from G. persimilis, but they have a different ecology and distribution and we regard them as distinct species. Caloplaca juniperina Tomin is lectotypified.

New species and records of saxicolous lichens from the Kodar Range (Trans-Baikal Territory, Russia)

“…This paper continues the series of publications describing new records of lichens and allied fungi of the Kodar Range in the Trans-Baikal Territory of southern Siberia (Gerasimova et al 2014;Chesnokov et al , 2017Chesnokov & Lishtva 2016;Vondrák et al 2016;Zhurbenko et al 2016). Here we report new records of saxicolous species of the region.…”

“…Their biodiversity in the Kodar Range has been studied for more than 15 years but about two-thirds of the Kodar territory has not yet been studied (Fig. 1); 251 species of lichens growing on rock are currently known from this territory (Makryi 2002a(Makryi , 2005(Makryi , 2012(Makryi , 2013(Makryi , 2014aMakryi & Lishtva 2005;Davydov et al 2011;Konoreva & Andreev 2013a, b;Chesnokov et al , 2017Chesnokov & Lishtva 2016;Vondrák et al 2016;Zhurbenko et al 2016). All localities are in the central part of Kodar Range (Fig.…”

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

“…It is valid for some genera (e.g., Tehler et al, ), but numerous epilithic lichens have large geographic ranges and some are considered cosmopolitan (e.g., Quilhot et al, ). It is probably not even true for all of Teloschistaceae; for example, the epilithic Flavoplaca flavocitrina may be cosmopolitan (Vondrák et al, ), and Xanthomendoza borealis is bipolar (Lindblom & Søchting, ).…”

“…Purely asexual lineages are rare in Teloschistaceae (Vondrák et al, ) and are absent from Blastenia . However 29% of Blastenia species (7 out of 24; 6 epiphytic, 1 epilithic) form vegetative diaspores.…”

New records of crustose Teloschistaceae (lichens, Ascomycota) from the Murmansk region of Russia

“…-It was synonymised with C. chlorina (Wetmore 1997, Khodosovtsev et al 2004, however Šoun et al (2011) showed that this is a distinct species. In the Murmansk region, it was known from the Bolshoy Aynov Island (Vondrák et al 2016a).…”