Four new genera of teloschistoid lichens (Teloschistaceae, Ascomycota) based on molecular phylogeny

Four new monophyletic groups are found within the teloschistoid clade of the subfamily Xanthorioideae in the Teloschistaceae using nuclear (ITS1/ITS2) and mitochondrial (12S mtSSU gene) DNA sequences. These groups are proposed as new genera: Brownliella gen. nova for the widely distributed Caloplaca cinnabarina group, Filsoniana gen. nova for the Australian Ca loplaca australiensis group, Fulgogasparrea gen. nova for the Western Pacific species Caloplaca decipioides, and Kaernefia gen. nova for the Southern Hemisphere Caloplaca kaernefeltii group. Massalongo's genus Niorma is resurrected for the Teloschistes hypoglaucus group.

Key words: Brownliella, Filsoniana, Fulgogasparrea, Kaernefia, mitochondrial DNA sequences, new genera, Niorma, nuclear DNA sequences

INTRODUCTION

The lichen family Teloschistaceae was recently divided into two subfamilies by Gaya et al. (2012), Caloplacoideae and Xanthorioideae. According to Gaya et al. (2012) the teloschistoid clade within the subfamily Xanthorioideae only included the genus Teloschistes and a number of species groups previously included in the genus Caloplaca. Arup et al. (2013) raised this clade to subfamily level, Teloschistoideae. However, this name was not validly published according to Art. 38 of the Code. They included ten genera in Teloschistoideae, three of which were described previously, Teloschistes Norm., Follmannia C. W. Dodge, and Josefpoeltia S. Y. Kondr. et Karnefelt, whereas seven were described as new. The recently proposed taxonomy of the teloschistoid clade was mainly based on ITS phylogeny, ecology and distribution of its members. However, an additional coding gene is probably needed for some of the proposed genera to be generally accepted.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the status of some newly identified monophyletic branches based on a new set of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences data and a revision of the morphology and phytochemistry of the monophyletic groups analysed, as well as a discussion of the status of some recently proposed genera. Four new genera, Brownliella, Filsoniana, Fulgogasparrea, and Kaernefia, are described, and a number of new combinations in the genera Niorma and Wetmoreana are proposed.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The methods used for extraction, amplification and phylogenetical analyses have been described in our previous papers (Fedorenko et al. 2009, 2012).

Genomic DNA was obtained from fresh samples and herbarium specimens. Voucher specimens included in phylogenetical analyses are listed in Table 1.

Two regions targeted for this study were: 0.6 kb of the ITS1/ITS2 region using the primers ITS1 and ITS4, 0.8 kb of 12S mtSSU using primers mtSSU1-mtSSU3R and mtSSU2R (Fedorenko et al. 2009, 2012).

Automated reaction clean-up and visualisation of the results were performed at the Lichen Bioresource Genome Sequencing and Analysis Core Facility of the Korean Lichen Research Institute, Sunchon National University, South Korea.

Sequence fragments were subjected to BLAST searches for the first verification of their identities. They were assembled and edited using Sequencher version 4.8 (Gene Codes Corporation, Ann Arbor, MI), and aligned manually.

The phylogenetic analyses of the manually aligned sequences were performed with PAUP version 4.0b (Swofford 2002). Trees were calculated using the general heuristic search option, maximising the number of saved trees to 1,000, whereas gaps were treated...