Abstract
After a brief historical survey, some current trends in the delimitation of lichen genera are discussed. A widespread tendency is that of elevating any supposedly monophyletic group of species to genus rank. As the term ‘monophyletic’ has no lower limit, this is likely to result in an explosive inflation of new genera, in a severe loss of the information carried by generic names and in a high degree of nomenclatural disorder. Five criteria are proposed for the acceptance or rejection of new generic segregates: (1) DNA testing for monophyly, (2) phylo-genetic analysis, (3) number of characters used, (4) number of species considered, (5) information content of the new splittings. Upon a critical analysis of several recent generic segregations, a more flexible approach to taxonomic ranks is recommended, and particularly, when most of the suggested criteria are not fulfilled, a more frequent use of the subgeneric rank, which does not imply name changes.
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