Taxonomic Investigations of Lecanora Strobilina and L. Symmicta (Lecanoraceae, Lecanorales) in Northeastern North America
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274232136 Taxonomic investigations of Lecanora strobilina and L. symmicta (Lecanoraceae, Lecanorales) in northeastern North America Article in The Bryologist · August 2013 DOI: 10.1639/0007-2745-116.3.287 CITATIONS READS 10 201 2 authors: Scott LaGreca Thorsten Lumbsch Duke University Field Museum of Natural History 34 PUBLICATIONS 226 CITATIONS 721 PUBLICATIONS 27,452 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Lecanomics - New ways of species detection and recognition in a ubiquitous group of lichens. View project Outline of Fungi View project All content following this page was uploaded by Thorsten Lumbsch on 10 June 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Taxonomic investigations of Lecanora strobilina and L. symmicta (Lecanoraceae, Lecanorales) in northeastern North America Author(s): Scott LaGreca and H. Thorsten Lumbsch Source: The Bryologist, 116(3):287-295. 2013. Published By: The American Bryological and Lichenological Society, Inc. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1639/0007-2745-116.3.287 URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1639/0007-2745-116.3.287 BioOne (www.bioone.org) is a nonprofit, online aggregation of core research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. BioOne provides a sustainable online platform for over 170 journals and books published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses. Your use of this PDF, the BioOne Web site, and all posted and associated content indicates your acceptance of BioOne’s Terms of Use, available at www.bioone.org/page/terms_of_use. Usage of BioOne content is strictly limited to personal, educational, and non-commercial use. Commercial inquiries or rights and permissions requests should be directed to the individual publisher as copyright holder. BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. Taxonomic investigations of Lecanora strobilina and L. symmicta (Lecanoraceae, Lecanorales) in northeastern North America Scott LaGreca1,2 and H. Thorsten Lumbsch3 2 Plant Pathology Herbarium, 334 Plant Science Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-5904, U.S.A.; 3 Department of Botany, The Field Museum, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605-2496, U.S.A. ABSTRACT. Two members of the Lecanora varia group (sensu Eigler), L. strobilina and L. symmicta, can be difficult to distinguish in northeastern North America. Morphological and chemical investigation of 277 specimens recognizes two species in northeastern North America, both fitting European concepts of L. strobilina and L. symmicta. The only reliable character for separating them is the size of the exciple (consistently larger in L. symmicta). Within each of these two species, previously unknown chemical variation is revealed—L. strobilina comprises three distinct chemotypes, while L. symmicta includes two. An isotype of L. symmictera is shown to contain the thiophanic acid chemosyndrome by HPLC, and hence the name L. symmictera cannot be applied to the xanthone-deficient chemotype of L. symmicta. Chemistry is not correlated with morphology or geographic distribution in either L. strobilina or L. symmicta,sowe regard the chemotypes of these two species as intraspecific variation. KEYWORDS. Chemotaxonomy, Lecanora varia group, New England. ¤¤¤ The genus Lecanora is a large group of crustose lichens defined by Eigler (1969) as species containing usnic traditionally characterized by lecanorine apothecia, green- acid as a major secondary product, completely lacking algal photobionts and colorless, non-septate spores in atranorin, and having a corticolous or lignicolous eight-spored, Lecanora-type asci. Lecanora has been the habit. The North American species were treated by subject of numerous investigative studies over the past S´liwa & Wetmore (2000) and Printzen (2001), with a century (for an excellent synopsis, see Pe´rez-Ortega number of species new to science proposed in the latter et al. 2010), but for the most part, the genus is still publication. As part of ongoing, collaborative efforts to regarded as an artificial assemblage of species by many further document the lichens of northeastern North modern workers. Currently within the genus, infrageneric America, we have been investigating the L. varia group ‘‘species groups’’ (e.g., the ‘‘L. subfusca group’’; the in this region (LaGreca & Lumbsch 2001; LaGreca & ‘‘L. subcarnea group’’) based primarily on chemistry Stutzman 2005). Based on Lumbsch & Brodo (2000), and apothecial anatomy are recognized. Some keys to S´liwa & Wetmore (2000), herbarium records and our Lecanora are subdivided into sections that treat particular own observations, six species of the L. varia group occur species groups (e.g., Ryan 1997). Molecular phylogenetic here—Lecanora conizaeoides Nyl. ex Crombie, L. cupressi studies over the past 15 years (Arup & Grube 1998, 2000; Tuck., L. expallens Ach., L. orae-frigidae R. Sant., L. Papong et al. 2013; Pe´rez-Ortega et al. 2010) have strobilina (Spreng.) Kieffer and L. symmicta (Ach.) Ach. demonstrated that some of these species groups, while Most are easily diagnosed on the basis of morphology, convenient for organizing identification keys, are non- substrate and/or chemistry (Brodo & Va¨nska¨ 1984; monophyletic. Lumbsch & Brodo 2000; S´liwa & Wetmore 2000). Two One such species group is the well-known Lecanora of them, however, L. strobilina and L. symmicta, can be varia group, recently shown to be non-monophyletic difficult to distinguish from each other in northeastern by Pe´rez-Ortega et al. (2010). The group was broadly North America. The similarity of these two species has been mentioned by several authors, including Brodo 1 Corresponding author’s e-mail: [email protected] (1967), Brodo et al. (2001) and S´liwa & Wetmore (2000). DOI: 10.1639/0007-2745-116.3.287 The latter authors even placed them in their own group The Bryologist 116(3), pp. 287–295 Published online: September 19, 2013 0007-2745/13/$1.05/0 Copyright E2013 by The American Bryological and Lichenological Society, Inc. 288 The Bryologist 116(3): 2013 within the L. varia group, the ‘‘L. strobilina group.’’ More Sonoran Desert material. However, S´liwa & Wetmore recently, Pe´rez-Ortega et al. (2010) recognized a ‘‘L. (2000) reported a variable chemistry for L. strobilina, symmicta group,’’ containing L. symmicta and seven with only some specimens reported as containing other species, in their phylogenetic tree. They did not decarboxysquamatic acid (which they called ‘‘LSTR’’, include L. strobilina in their analysis, however, so its as this depside was, at that time, unnamed), sometimes relationship to L. symmicta and other members of the L. with traces of squamatic acid. Our initial chemical symmicta group (sensu Pe´rez-Ortega et al.) is unknown. analyses of L. strobilina indicate that specimens from In northeastern North America, specimens of our region are chemically variable in a fashion similar Lecanora strobilina and L. symmicta can usually be to the report of S´liwa & Wetmore (2000). separated by the anatomy of their young apothecia—L. The objective of the present study is to clarify the strobilina has a leprose, ecorticate, thalline amphithe- species within the Lecanora strobilina group sensu S´liwa cium, while L. symmicta possesses a biatorine apothe- & Wetmore (2000) in northeastern North America; it cial margin (Brodo 1967; Laundon 1976; Printzen represents the first intensive taxonomic study of this 2001; S´liwa & Wetmore 2000). However, in both group in this region. The questions we were trying to species, the apothecial margins become excluded with answer are: (i) how many species occur in this group in age, so specimens without young apothecia are difficult New York, New England and adjacent temperate and to separate on this basis. According to the literature, L. boreal Canada (ii) do they match the species concepts strobilina might also be separated from L. symmicta by of L. strobilina and L. symmicta, which were described virtue of a granular, often ecorticate thallus in the from Europe—or are additional concepts applicable, former species vs. a smooth thallus in the latter. This e.g., the new species described in Printzen (2001) from character appears to be sufficient to distinguish many southwestern North America? specimens from our region, but we have noted some variation within both species—some specimens are MATERIALS AND METHODS granular, while others are completely smooth. In A total of 277 specimens of Lecanora strobilina, addition, L. symmicta also shows variation with regards L. symmicta and L. symmictera from the following to apothecial color—specimens in our region vary herbaria were utilized in this study: CANL, FH, MAINE, from yellow-green to bluish, orange or yellowish. They MSC, NY, and the personal collections of D. Greene, also vary with regards to fusion of apothecia—some S. LaGreca, E. Lay, and P. May. The study area includ- specimens possess individual apothecia, while others ed the following states and provinces: Connecticut, have apothecia which are fused together. Maine, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New Hamp- Chemically, the Lecanora strobilina group (sensu shire, New York, Newfoundland,