Abstract
Tropical mountains and especially their forests are hot spots of biodiversity threatened by human population pressure and climate change. The diversity of lichens in tropical Africa is especially poorly known. Here we use the mtSSU and nuITS molecular markers together with morphology and ecology to assess Leptogium (Peltigerales, Ascomycota) diversity in the tropical mountains of Taita Hills and Mt. Kasigau in Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The sampled habitats cover a wide range of ecosystems from savanna to alpine heath vegetation and from relatively natural forests to agricultural environments and plantation forests. We demonstrate that Leptogium diversity in Africa is much higher than previously known and provide preliminary data on over 70 putative species, including nine established species previously known from the area and over 60 phylogenetically, morphologically, and/or ecologically defined Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs). Many traditional species concepts are shown to represent morphotypes comprised of several taxa. Many of the species were only found from specific ecosystems and/or restricted habitats and are thus threatened by ongoing habitat fragmentation and degradation of the natural environment. Our results emphasize the importance of molecular markers in species inventories of highly diverse organism groups and geographical areas.
Highlights
Tropical mountains and especially the montane forests are hot spots of biodiversity and endemism and may represent true evolutionary cradles especially for neoendemics [1,2,3,4,5].The tropical rainforests of eastern Africa originated approximately 30 million years ago and have persisted through climatic fluctuations, mainly due to the atmospheric moisture supplied by remarkably stable Indian Ocean currents [6]
East Africa [32,33,36], we found nine that could be relatively unambiguously identified: Leptogium austroamericanum (Figure 9a), L. burnetiae, L. caespitosum (Figure 9b), L. ethiopicum (Figure 9c), L. javanicum (Figure 9d), L. juressianum, L. krogiae, L. marginellum (Figure 9e,f), and L. resupinans
Originally described from a high-elevation (> 3000 m) Ethiopian montane forest has been previously reported from Kenya [69], and we found it from high-elevation montane forests on Mt
Summary
Tropical mountains and especially the montane forests are hot spots of biodiversity and endemism and may represent true evolutionary cradles especially for neoendemics [1,2,3,4,5].The tropical rainforests of eastern Africa originated approximately 30 million years ago and have persisted through climatic fluctuations, mainly due to the atmospheric moisture supplied by remarkably stable Indian Ocean currents [6]. Tropical mountains and especially the montane forests are hot spots of biodiversity and endemism and may represent true evolutionary cradles especially for neoendemics [1,2,3,4,5]. There, a very complex climatic history has fragmented a once extensive ancient forest ecosystem and given rise to many unique habitats with high levels of local endemism [1,2,5,6,7]. East African mountains benefit from moisture brought by the trade winds and sustain the last remaining fragments of East African montane rain forests, surrounded by more extensive arid forests and woodlands [6]. The evergreen montane forests on the Eastern Arc are probably the oldest remaining forests in East Africa, and they effectively link the forests of the Indian
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