A regional study of the genus Phyllopsora (Ramalinaceae) in Asia and Melanesia.

Sonja Kistenich,Siril Wijesundara,Charles S Vairappan,Einar Timdal,Gothamie Weerakoon,Patricia A Wolseley,Mika Bendiksby

doi:10.3897/mycokeys.53.33425

Abstract

Phyllopsora is a crustose to squamulose lichen genus inhabiting the bark of trees in moist tropical forests and rainforests. Species identification is generally challenging and is mainly based on ascospore morphology, thallus morphology and anatomy, vegetative dispersal units, and on secondary chemistry. While regional treatments of the genus have been conducted for Africa, South America and Australia, there exists no study focusing on the Asian and Melanesian species. Previously, 24 species of Phyllopsora s. str. have been reported from major national studies and checklists representing 13 countries. We have studied herbarium material of 625 Phyllopsora specimens from 18 countries using morphology, anatomy, secondary chemistry, and molecular data to investigate the diversity of Phyllopsora species in Asia and Melanesia. We report the occurrence of 28 species of Phyllopsora including the following three species described as new to science: P.sabahana from Malaysia, P.siamensis from Thailand and P.pseudocorallina from Asia and Africa. Eight species are reported as new to Asia. A key to the Asian and Melanesian species of Phyllopsora is provided.

Highlights

Morphological identification of many specimens was challenging, but with data obtained by thin-layer chromatography (TLC), many specimens could be identified to species level
Of the 908 studied specimens, we found 625 specimens to belong in Phyllopsora, while 283 specimens were found to belong in other genera of the Malmideaceae and Ramalinaceae
In this study, we present the first revision of the genus Phyllopsora for Asia and Melanesia based on the integrative study of morphology, chemistry and DNA sequence data

Summary

Introduction

Arg. consists of 54 crustose or squamulose species (Kistenich et al in press). They grow mostly on bark of trees in (sub-)tropical rainforests or moist woodlands. Mishra et al (2011) described two species and one variety from India as new to science. Kondratyuk et al (2016) described a new species from South Korea. 24 of the 54 accepted Phyllopsora species have been reported to occur in Asia and Melanesia (Table 1). An additional nine species reported from Asia represent either synonyms or have recently been excluded from the genus (Kistenich et al in press; 2018b; Table 1)

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Results

Conclusion