Myriospora, a genus newly reported for Antarctica with a worldwide key to the species

Abstract

AbstractMyriospora signyensis Purvis, Fdez-Brime, M. Westb. & Wedin is described from Signy Island, South Orkney Islands, Antarctica, where it occurs predominantly on quartz mica schist. This represents the first record of the genus for Antarctica. The distinctive interrupted photobiont arrangement places it within the genus Myriospora (formerly known as the ‘Acarospora’ smaragdula group, or Silobia). The new species is characterized by having large, distinctly elevated, sessile apothecia with a prominent margin and a thallus that is usually lobed at the margins and variously orange-red, rust-coloured or brown-pigmented. Molecular phylogenetic analyses inferred with strong support that M. signyensis is closely related to M. scabrida which is similar in having a lobed, imbricate thallus with large and frequently somewhat raised apothecia, but which differs in never being rusty red, by frequently having a larger number of apothecia per areole/squamule and by having a thick and distinctive thalline epinecral layer. Myriospora signyensis is otherwise most similar to M. dilatata but the thallus of M. dilatata is never imbricate-lobate and the ascomata of M. signyensis have larger and more distinctly raised and sessile apothecia. A worldwide key to the 10 species currently recognized in the genus is presented.