plants Article Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Three Endolichenic Isolates of Xylaria (Xylariaceae), from Cladonia curta Ahti & Marcelli (Cladoniaceae) Ehidy Rocio Peña Cañón 1 , Margeli Pereira de Albuquerque 2, Rodrigo Paidano Alves 3 , Antonio Batista Pereira 2 and Filipe de Carvalho Victoria 2,* 1 Grupo de Investigación Biología para la Conservación, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Avenida Central del Norte 39-115, 150003 Tunja, Colombia;
[email protected] 2 Núcleo de Estudos da Vegetação Antártica (NEVA), Universidade Federal do Pampa (UNIPAMPA), Avenida Antônio Trilha, 1847, 97300-000 São Gabriel CEP, Brazil;
[email protected] (M.P.d.A.);
[email protected] (A.B.P.) 3 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Andre Araujo Avenue, 2936, 69067-375 Manaus, Brazil;
[email protected] * Correspondence: fi
[email protected]; Tel.: +55-55-3237-0863 Received: 29 July 2019; Accepted: 10 September 2019; Published: 8 October 2019 Abstract: Endophyte biology is a branch of science that contributes to the understanding of the diversity and ecology of microorganisms that live inside plants, fungi, and lichen. Considering that the diversity of endolichenic fungi is little explored, and its phylogenetic relationship with other lifestyles (endophytism and saprotrophism) is still to be explored in detail, this paper presents data on axenic cultures and phylogenetic relationships of three endolichenic fungi, isolated in laboratory. Cladonia curta Ahti & Marcelli, a species of lichen described in Brazil, is distributed at three sites in the Southeast of the country, in mesophilous forests and the Cerrado. Initial hyphal growth of Xylaria spp. on C. curta podetia started four days after inoculation and continued for the next 13 days until the hyphae completely covered the podetia.