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Cora arachnoidea. A. Specimen in the field (Colombia, Lücking 32700). B. Lobe enlarged showing tomentose upper surface (holotype). C. Lobe underside showing hymenophore with involute, byssoid margins (Venezuela, Hernández 1782). Scale in A, C = 5 mm, in B = 1 mm.
Source publication
As part of a larger systematic and taxonomic revision, including molecular phylogenetic analysis, of lichenized Basidiomycota in the Dictyonema clade, ten species are described as new from tropical America, seven in the foliose genus Cora and three in the filamentous genus Dictyonema: Cora arachnoidea J. E. Hern. & Lücking, sp. nov., C. aspera Wilk...
Similar publications
Based on recent collections from Ecuador and Panama and on type studies, 16 species of Favolaschia (Mycenaceae, Agaricales), including one new to science, are presented with detailed descriptions and illustrations. Favolaschia macropora is described as new from a bamboo
species from Panama. Favolaschia cinnabarina and F. gaillardii probably are syn...
Citations
... Currently, around 265 species are distinguished using a combination of molecular and morphological data (Dal Forno et al. 2022). A total of 105 species has been formally described (Lücking et al. 2013(Lücking et al. , 2015a(Lücking et al. , 2017(Lücking et al. , 2020cVargas et al. 2014;Ariyawansa et al. 2015;Moncada et al. 2019) and 87 of these have molecular and comprehensive phenotype data available. Cora is an ideal model case to implement the PhyloKey approach, since it features only a small number of diagnostic characters compared to other macrolichens and the characters are partly homoplastic, features that often lead to failure when using traditional dichotomous keys. ...
... The time to observe all characters to establish a matrix is therefore longer when using PhyloKey, typically about twice as long (i.e. the mean time one would arrive at a species in the middle of a dichotomous key). For example, in the dichotomous key to Cora provided by Lücking et al. (2013), arriving at each species keyed out there would require the observation of between three and eight morpho-anatomical characters, on average about five. To use PhyloKey, about ten characters would have to be scored per specimen, not counting chorological characters (distribution), requiring about ten minutes per specimen (one minute per character). ...
We present a novel identification tool called PhyloKey , based on the method of morphology-based, phylogenetic binning developed within the software package RAxML. This method takes a reference data set of species for which both molecular and morphological data are available, computes a molecular reference tree, maps the morphological characters on the tree, and computes weights based on their level of consistency versus homoplasy using maximum likelihood (ML) and maximum parsimony (MP). Additional units for which only morphological data are known are then binned onto the reference tree, calculating bootstrap support values for alternative placements. This approach is modified here to work as an identification tool which uses the same character coding approach as interactive keys. However, rather than identifying individual samples through a progressive filtering process when entering or selecting characters, query samples are binned in batch mode to all possible alternative species in the tree, with each placement receiving a bootstrap support adding to 100% for all alternative placements. In addition to the fact that, after scoring a character matrix, a large number of specimens can be identified at once in short time, all possible alternative identifications are immediately apparent and can be evaluated based on their bootstrap support values. We illustrate this approach using the basidiolichen genus Cora , which was recently shown to contain hundreds of species. We also demonstrate how the PhyloKey approach can aid the restudying of herbarium samples, adding further value to these collections and contributing with large quantitative data matrices to ‘non-molecular museomics’. Our analysis showed that PhyloKey identifies species correctly with as low as 50% of the characters sampled, depending on the nature of the reference tree and the character weighting scheme. Overall, a molecular reference tree worked best, but a randomized reference tree gave more consistent results, whereas a morphological reference tree performed less well. Surprisingly, even character weighting gave the best results, followed by parsimony weighting and then maximum likelihood weighting.
... Only 172 species, 15 genera, five families, five orders in one class belong to the basidiomycetes (Lücking et al. 2017a, b), but molecular data of more than 300 species of basidiolichens were not yet published. In the meantime, new taxa of basidiolichens have been described (Coca et al. 2018;Dal-Forno et al. 2019;Lücking et al. 2022). However, large numbers of species and genera of lichenized asco-and basidiomycetes await molecular analysis. ...
This chapter gives an overview on (1) lichen-forming fungi, lichen photobionts and peculiarities of lichen symbiosis such as gains and losses of lichenization, species concepts, specificity, morphodemes and morphotype pairs, non-lichen mutualistic fungal interactions with unicellular algae and cyanobacteria and mycophycobioses; (2) the mycobiont–photobiont interface, water relations and gas exchange, mycobiont-derived secondary metabolites and the accumulation of heavy metals or radionuclides; (3) the microbiome of lichen thalli, i.e. the bacteriome (epi- and endolichenic bacteria), lichenicolous and endolichenic fungi, lichenicolous lichens and the virome of lichens and their allies; (4) fossil lichens and their microbiome; (5) lichen–animal interactions such as the micro- and mesofauna of lichen thalli, lichenivory in invertebrates and vertebrates, endo-and epizoochory; (6) lichenomimesis in animals and flowering plants.
... The presence and cover of lichens and bryophytes were estimated using five 20 cm  30 cm grids (250 grids cover of the vascular species was quantified in each nested plot, using a 1 m  1 m, divided into 0.10 cm  0.10 cm cell) were recorded. Lichens and bryophytes were identified with a Zeiss PRIMO STAR microscope and a Zeiss Stemi DV4 stereoscope, together with specific taxonomic keys (Churchill and Linares, 1995;Gradstein and Costa, 2003;Lücking et al., 2013;Gradstein, 2021). The identified samples were placed in the HUTPL herbarium (Universidad T ecnica Particular de Loja). ...
Background
The deforestation caused by road construction is one of the main drivers for both biodiversity and function loss in tropical ecosystems. Terricolous cryptogams are pioneers in colonizing roadside and they are limited by environmental and edaphic factors, thus, cryptogams may act as pioneers for ecosystem rehabilitation at roadside.
Methods
This research was aimed at determining the diversity and composition of terricolous cryptogams, as well as their relationship with elevation and soil properties among roadside of the tropical Andes of Ecuador, in order to establish indicator species of this anthropized ecosystems. Five elevations were selected and in each one 50 grids of 20 cm × 30 cm were sampled (250 in total along the road), where occurrence, cover and identification of every cryptogam species were recorded. To evaluate the effect of elevation and soil properties on cryptogam richness, a linear model was conducted. Species composition among elevations was compared by non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and their relationship with the environmental variables through a correlation with adjusted axes was performed. A total of 72 species were recorded, those being 44 bryophytes and 28 lichens. Species richness and composition of terricolous cryptogams were influenced by elevation and soil properties, thus the richness is higher at elevations E1, E2 and E3 (2600, 2200 and 1800 m a.s.l.), differing from low elevations E4 and E5 (1400 and 1000 m a.s.l.). Higher elevations with specific soil conditions (e.g bulk density, nitrogen and silt) harbored different cryptogam communities than those in lower elevations.
Conclusions
A combination of both elevation and soil properties are shaping the colonization by terricolous cryptogams commnunities. As such, 18 species were identified as the best indicators for all sets of environmental conditions at the roadside, which can therefore be considered for monitoring ecological processes in tropical areas. Use of biocrusts for restoration is an emerging field. If implemented in the study region, elevation and soil drivers may help to better chose the more suitable cryptogam species to manage and stabilize roadside in tropical roads.
... Increasing focus was also placed on species recognition in lichenized Basidiomycota, using the fungal ITS barcoding locus (Schoch et al. 2012;Lücking et al. 2014b). As a result, the number of accepted species of lichenized Basidiomycota, including those described herein, has increased dramatically, in particular in the genus Cora ( Fig. 1) (Chaves et al. 2004;Fischer et al. 2007;Nelsen et al. 2007;Hodkinson et al. 2014;Sulzbacher et al. 2012;Yánez et al. 2012;Lücking et al. 2013aLücking et al. , b, 2014bSchmull et al. 2014;Vargas et al. 2014;Yanaga et al. 2015;Dal Forno et al. 2016). This corresponds to an increase of the proportion of Basidiomycota among lichen fungi from approximately 0.2 % until the year 2000 to 0.9 % currently and 1.6 % predicted by the end of 2017. ...
... Specimens were studied at The Field Museum (Chicago), George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), the Smithsonian Institution National History Museum (Washington), the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum (Berlin, Germany), and the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas (Bogotá, Colombia), using standard techniques of light microscopy and, for selected specimens, thin-layer chromatography (Orange et al. 2010). We used a standardized protocol for morphological, anatomical, and chemical characters to describe each species (Lücking et al. 2013a;Vargas et al. 2014). Specimens are deposited at the cited herbaria; all herbarium specimens previously cited as deposited at INB (National Biodiversity Institute, Costa Rica) have now been relocated to CR (National Herbarium at the National Museum, Costa Rica). ...
... A novel, rapid identification tool for the genus using the method of phylogenetic binning is also under way ). In the course of translating the newly available phylogeny into a formal classification, we also critically revised some of the previously described species, which were based on a much reduced molecular data set (Lücking et al. 2013a). As a result, the following taxa are here redefined: Cora arachnoidea J.E. Hern. ...
Following a large-scale phylogenetic study of the lichenized genus Cora (Basidiomycota: Agaricales: Hygrophoraceae), we formally describe 70 new species, honouring the seventieth birthday of David Leslie Hawksworth, one of the preeminent figures in mycology
and lichenology in the past 50 years. Based on an updated phylogeny using the ITS fungal barcoding locus, we now recognize 189 taxa in a genus that until recently was considered to represent a single species; including this contribution, 92 of these are formally recognized, including five taxa based on historical names or collections that have not been sequenced. Species of Cora can be recognized by a combination of morphological (size, colour, lobe configuration, surface hairs, hymenophore size and shape), anatomical (thallus thickness, cortex structure, photobiont type, hyphal papillae), and ecogeographical features (substrate, habitat, distribution), and a keytable allowing the identification of all accepted taxa is provided...
... Values were relatively high considering the limiting conditions for soil development in the study area (e.g., steep slopes with hard exposed metamorphic bedrock and low vegetation cover), although they remained below typical values reported in the superpáramo belt in Venezuela between 4,000 and 4,400 m asl (Malagón, 1982;Pérez, 1995). The accumulation of soil N t could be partly due to the presence of several species of lichenized fungi which are known to involve nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria as primary (e.g., Sticta, Peltigera, and Cora) or secondary photobiont (e.g., species of Stereocaulon and Placopsis; Rikkinen, 2002;Lücking et al., 2013). ...
... Even so, when their cover was analyzed at the species level, we did find several bryophyte and lichenized fungi species that were significantly associated with P. petrosa, supporting our 4th prediction. Most of these species were dominant within BSCs, and three of the lichens are known to have atmospheric N-fixing photobionts (Rikkinen, 2002;Lücking et al., 2013). Hence, our results support the idea that in extreme tropical alpine areas, facilitation mediated by BSCs, more than by nurse plants, could be an important mechanism for the establishment of ruderal plants (see also Zimmer et al., 2018). ...
Glaciers are receding at unprecedented rates in the alpine tropics, opening-up new areas for ecosystem assembly. However, little is known about the patterns/mechanisms of primary succession during the last stages of glacier retreat in tropical mountains. Our aim was to analyze soil development and vegetation assembly during primary succession, and the role of changing adaptive strategies and facilitative interactions on these processes at the forefront of the last Venezuelan glacier (Humboldt Peak, 4,940 m asl). We established a chronosequence of four sites where the glacier retreated between 1910 and 2009. We compared soil organic matter (SOM), nutrients and temperatures inside vs. outside biological soil crusts (BSCs) at each site, estimated the cover of lichen, bryophyte and vascular plant species present, and analyzed changes in their growth-form abundance and species/functional turnover. We also evaluated local spatial associations between lichens/bryophytes and the dominant ruderal vascular plant (the grass Poa petrosa). We found a progressive increase in SOM during the first century of succession, while BSCs only had a positive buffering effect on superficial soil temperatures. Early seral stages were dominated by lichens and bryophytes, while vascular plant cover remained low during the first six decades, and was almost exclusively represented by wind dispersed/pollinated grasses. There was a general increase in species richness along the chronosequence, but it declined in late succession for lichens. Lichen and bryophyte communities exhibited a higher species turnover than vascular plants, resulting in the loss of some pioneer specialists as succession progressed. Lichen and bryophyte species were positively associated with safe-sites for the colonization of the dominant ruderal grass, suggesting a possible facilitation effect. Our results indicate that lichens and bryophytes play a key role as pioneers in these high tropical alpine environments. The limited initial colonization of vascular plants and the progressive accumulation of species and growth-forms (i.e., direct succession) could be linked to a combination of severe environmental filtering during early seral stages and limitations for zoochoric seed dispersal and entomophilic/ornithophilic pollination. This could potentially result in a slow successional response of these ecosystems to accelerated glacier loss and climate change.
... Ach. (Moncada et al. 2013a(Moncada et al. , 2015, Cora Fr. (Lücking et al. 2013, Sulzbacheromyces B.P. Hodk. & Lücking (Coca et al. 2018), Graphis Adans. ...
Subandine and high Andean forests are often dominated by oak trees and these are recognized as suitable phorophytes for diverse epiphyte communities. Among the latter, lichens in the upper strata appear to be understudied. Here, we report the discovery of two new species of Astrothelium (Trypetheliaceae), a diverse genus of tropical crustose lichens, both with the unusual feature of muriform, amyloid ascospores. Astrothelium mordonialensis is characterized by an olive-green thallus with solitary ascomata producing muriform and amyloid ascospores with tightened center and A. rogitamae by a light brownish to greenish grey thallus with yellow pigmented solitary ascomata, producing muriform and amyloid ascospores.
... For instance, efforts to characterize diversity in Dictyonemateae revealed that what had historically been considered a single species, instead represented over a hundred species across multiple genera (Lücking, Dal-Forno, et al., 2014). Numerous Dictyonemateae species have been described over the past 10 years with four papers alone (Dal Forno, Bungartz, Yánez-Ayabaca, Dal-Forno et al., 2016;Lücking, Dal Forno, et al., 2017;Lücking et al., 2013) accounting for the description of over 90 of the 148 recognized species, with Dal Forno et al. (2021) noting that hundreds still await description. ...
Historic and modern efforts to understand lichen diversity and evolution have overwhelmingly concentrated on that of the fungal partner, which represents one of the most taxonomically diverse nutritional modes among the Fungi. But what about the algal and cyanobacterial symbionts? An explosion of studies on these cryptic symbionts over the past 20+ years has facilitated a richer understanding of their diversity, patterns of association, and the symbiosis itself. In a From the Cover article in this issue of Molecular Ecology, Dal Forno et al. (2021) provide new insight into one of the most fascinating lichen symbioses. By sequencing cyanobacterial symbionts from over 650 specimens, they reveal the presence of overlooked cyanobacterial diversity, evidence for symbiont sharing among distantly related fungi, and utilize a comparative dating framework to reveal temporal discordance among interacting fungal and cyanobacterial lineages.
... Mauritius (Fries, 1838;Lücking et al., 2013), a recent finding in Sri ...
Recent studies have uncovered remarkable diversity in Dictyonema s.lat. basidiolichens, here recognized as subtribe Dictyonemateae. This group includes five genera and 148 species, but hundreds more await description. The photobionts of these lichens belong to Rhizonema, a recently resurrected cyanobacterial genus known by a single species. To further investigate photobiont diversity within Dictyonemateae, we generated 765 new cyanobacterial sequences from 635 specimens collected from 18 countries. The ITS barcoding locus supported the recognition of 200 mycobiont (fungal) species among these samples, but the photobiont diversity was comparatively low. Our analyses revealed three main divisions of Rhizonema, with two repeatedly recovered as monophyletic (proposed as new species), and the third mostly paraphyletic. The paraphyletic lineage corresponds to R. interruptum and partnered with mycobionts from all five genera in Dictyonemateae. There was no evidence of photobiont‐mycobiont co‐speciation, but one of the monophyletic lineages of Rhizonema appears to partner predominantly with one of the two major clades of Cora (mycobiont) with samples collected largely from the northern Andes. Molecular clock estimations indicate the Rhizonema species are much older than the fungal species in the Dictyonemateae, suggesting that these basidiolichens obtained their photobionts from older ascolichen lineages and the photobiont variation in extant lineages of Dictyonemateae is the result of multiple photobiont switches. These results support the hypothesis of lichens representing "fungal farmers," in which diverse mycobiont lineages associate with a substantially lower diversity of photobionts by sharing those photobionts best suited for the lichen symbiosis among multiple and often unrelated mycobiont lineages.
... Given the much-revised phylogenetic classification of genera and species in the Dictyonema clade ( Lücking et al. 2013, 2017bDal Forno et al. 2013, 2017Dal Forno 2015) and that identifications of North American material rely almost entirely on Parmasto's (1978) outdated monograph, virtually nothing is known about the diversity and range of this clade in the United States. The only reported species that might actually be present in North America north of Mexico is the demonstrably widespread Dictyonema moorei, which is well characterized by 2-3 rows of cyanobacterial cells inside the fungal sheath. ...
Three species of lichenized basidiomycetes in the Dictyonema clade from southeastern North America are described as new to science: Cyphellostereum georgianum , C. jamesianum and Dictyonema lawreyi , all with a crustose-filamentous growth form. Based on ITS sequences, the species form well-supported monophyletic clades in a phylogeny and are represented by at least two specimens each. They are also distinguishable by morphological and anatomical characters. These new findings emphasize the importance of lichenological studies in North America, especially in historically understudied taxonomic groups, such as basidiolichens. This study is dedicated to James D. Lawrey on the occasion of his 70 th birthday.
... After the formal recognition of Cora as a genus separate from Dictyonema s.str. Lücking et al. 2013), a much broader sampling of Cora revealed the presence of at least nine lineages in Mexico, none of them conspecific with C. glabrata s.str. or C. pavonia s.str., two species likely endemic to the Caribbean . ...
In a continued effort to catalog the numerous phylogenetically detected and predicted species of Cora in the Americas, we focus here on the diversity of the genus in Mexico and the phylogenetic relationships of the taxa present in this area. Based on previous results and new collections, 12 taxa are recognized in Mexico, including eight new species and one new subspecies. The 12 taxa form 11 unrelated lineages within the genus, indicating multiple independent colonization from Central and South America. While the new subspecies is nested within a species known from the northern Andes in South America, the other species are all putative endemics for Mexico, resulting in endemism of 92% at species level and 100% at taxon level. Considering the rather narrow area of origin of the sequenced specimens in southeastern Mexico and the previously documented range of Cora including the northwestern part of the country, plus the underlying topography, we predict that the 12 species and subspecies now known represent only about 20% of the total richness of Cora in the country, and that many more endemic lineages are to be found in the western and northwestern parts (Sierra Madre Occidental). The new taxa from Mexico formally introduced in this study are Cora benitoana sp. nov., with a strongly projecting, cyphelloid hymenophore; C. buapana sp. nov., with elongate, finger-like and partly branched appendages on the lower medullary hyphae; C . dewisanti subsp. mexicana subsp. nov., with a marginally protruding hymenophore; C. guzmaniana sp. nov., with a partly setose lobe surface; C. ixtlanensis sp. nov., a phenotypically cryptic species similar but unrelated to C. terrestris ; C. lawreyana sp. nov., with globose hyphal appendages; C. marusae sp. nov., a phenotypically cryptic species similar but unrelated to C. comaltepeca ; C. totonacorum sp. nov., a phenotypically cryptic species similar but phylogenetically distant to C. davidia ; and C. zapotecorum sp. nov., with a very thinly pilose lobe surface.
