A biogeographic connection between Antarctica and montane regions of western North America highlights the need for further study of lecideoid lichens

High levels of endemism and local differentiation in the fungal and algal symbionts of saxicolous lecideoid lichens along a latitudinal gradient in southern South America

“…2010, 2016; Hale et al . 2019) and Lecidella siplei (Ruprecht et al . 2012 b ), were not found in the sSA regions.…”

“…Acquiring larger datasets along the assumed distribution routes of the highest mountain ranges (Garrido-Benavent & Pérez-Ortega 2017; Hale et al . 2019), and a consequent sampling for better global coverage, will help to understand colonization events and specialization in this, so far, quite overlooked group of crustose lichens.…”

“…Interestingly, several cosmopolitan and abundant mycobiont species occurring in continental and maritime Antarctica, for example Lecidea andersonii, L. polypycnidophora (Hertel 2007;Ruprecht et al 2010Ruprecht et al , 2016Hale et al 2019) and Lecidella siplei (Ruprecht et al 2012b), were not found in the sSA regions.…”

“…During the last decade, molecular re-evaluations have helped to redefine the species concepts behind these diverse groups but were mostly focused on the Northern Hemisphere (Buschbom & Mueller 2004; Schmull et al 2011; Orange 2014; Zhao et al 2015, 2016; McCune et al 2017) and Antarctica (Ruprecht et al 2010, 2012 b ). However, Hale et al (2019) recently demonstrated a biogeographical connection between the Lecidea species of western North America and the southern polar regions, helping to provide a better understanding of distribution and speciation patterns in this group. Nevertheless, intermediate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere remain understudied and recently published results (Ruprecht et al 2016) have emphasized the extent of the knowledge gap in southern South American lecideoid lichens, not only from the mycobiont perspective but also from that of the associated green microalgae.…”

Alpine lichen diversity in an isolated sky island in the Colorado Plateau, USA—Insight from an integrative biodiversity inventory

“…Frequent long‐distance dispersal has been documented for a number of alpine and arctic lichens (Fernández‐Mendoza & Printzen, 2013 ; Garrido‐Benavent et al., 2021 ; Geml et al., 2010 ; Onuţ‐Brännström et al., 2017 ) and a “mountain hopping” mechanism of dispersal explains, in part, the broad distribution of many alpine lichens (Garrido‐Benavent & Pérez‐Ortega, 2017 ). Therefore, the Rocky Mountains in North America play a fundamental role in understanding the processes that influence the distribution of alpine lichen communities (Garrido‐Benavent & Pérez‐Ortega, 2017 ; Hale et al., 2019 ; Weber, 2003 ). To investigate how this might look in practice, here we attempt to characterize lichen‐forming fungal species diversity in the alpine zone of an isolated sky island in the Southern Rocky Mountains using an integrative taxonomic approach—the La Sal Mountains (hereafter the “La Sals”) in the Colorado Plateau in eastern Utah.…”