A new perspective onMelanophloea, ThelocarpellaandTrimmatothelopsis: species previously placed in multiple families are united within a single genus in the Acarosporaceae

Abstract

Abstract Recent molecular phylogenetic studies of the lichen family Acarosporaceae have shown that genera in this group, as traditionally defined, are not monophyletic and that changes are required to accommodate the discovery that taxa with disparate thallus morphologies are often closely related. Here we use phylogenetic inferences of mtSSU sequence data to show that seven species (Acarospora dispersa, A. rhizobola, A. terricola, Melanophloea americana, M. coreana, M. montana and Thelocarpella gordensis), currently placed in four genera and three families, and with divergent thallus morphologies, all belong to a single strongly supported clade within the Acarosporaceae. Members of the clade all have apothecia with an incurving parathecium which forms globose apothecia in which the apothecial disc is less than or equal to half the width of the equatorial diameter of the hymenium, and long bacilliform conidia. We transfer the species to Trimmatothelopsis, the oldest generic epithet available for the group...