Phylogenetic and morphological analyses of Coniochaeta isolates recovered from Inner Mongolia and Yunnan revealed three new endolichenic fungal species.

Meng-Yao Ding,Tanay Bose,Hong-Li Si,Run-Lei Chang,Xiao-Xiao Zheng,Yue-Min Su

doi:10.3897/mycokeys.83.71140

Abstract

Lichens are the result of a symbiotic interaction between fungi (mycobionts) and algae (phycobionts). Aside from mycobionts, lichen thalli can also contain non-lichenised fungal species, such as lichenicolous and endolichenic fungi. For this study, three surveys were conducted in China’s Yunnan Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region between 2017 and 2020. Several samples of four lichen species were collected during these surveys: Candelariafibrosa, Flavoparmeliacaperata, Flavopuncteliaflaventior and Ramalinasinensis. Six isolates of Coniochaeta were recovered from these four lichen species. The phylogenetic and morphological analyses revealed that two of these isolates were previously identified species, Coniochaetavelutinosa and C.acaciae. Those remaining were from potentially unknown species. We used molecular and morphological data to describe these previously-unknown species as Coniochaetafibrosaesp. nov., C.mongoliaesp. nov. and C.sinensissp. nov. The findings of this study significantly improve our understanding of the variety and habitat preferences of Coniochaeta in China and globally.

Highlights

Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between heterotrophic fungi and algae that are usually referred to as mycobiont and phycobiont, respectively (Nash and Thomas 2008; Tripathi and Joshi 2019)
Samples of Flavoparmelia caperata (2017), Flavopunctelia flaventior (2017) and Candelaria fibrosa (2020) were collected from the Yunnan Province, whereas Ramalina sinensis was collected from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2019
Four lichen species were collected from Yunnan Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2017, 2019 and 2020

Summary

Introduction

Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between heterotrophic fungi and algae (including cyanobacteria) that are usually referred to as mycobiont and phycobiont, respectively (Nash and Thomas 2008; Tripathi and Joshi 2019). Lichens exhibit a diversity of colours, thallus morphology and fruiting bodies (Ahmadjian 1993). Apart from the mycobionts, a lichen thallus can house non-lichenised fungal species, such as lichenicolous and endolichenic fungi. The former utilise lichens as their hosts (Lawrey and Diederich 2003), whereas the latter behave similar to ‘endophytes’ (Arnold et al 2009; Suryanarayanan and Thirunavukkarasu 2017). Various species of Coniochaeta are examples of endolichenic fungi (Zhang et al 2016; Harrington et al 2019)

Methods

Results

Conclusion