A New Cryptic Lineage in Parmeliaceae (Ascomycota) with Pharmacological Properties

Abstract

We used molecular data to address species delimitation in a species complex of the parmelioid genus Canoparmelia and compare the pharmacological properties of the two clades identified. We used HPLC_DAD_MS chromatography to identify and quantify the secondary substances and used a concatenated data set of three ribosomal markers to infer phylogenetic relationships. Some historical herbarium specimens were also examined. We found two groups that showed distinct pharmacological properties. The phylogenetic study supported the separation of these two groups as distinct lineages, which are here accepted as distinct species: Canoparmelia caroliniana occurring in temperate to tropical ecosystems of a variety of worldwide localities, including America, Macaronesia, south-west Europe and potentially East Africa, whereas the Kenyan populations represent the second group, for which we propose the new species C. kakamegaensis Garrido-Huéscar, Divakar & Kirika. This study highlights the importance of recognizing cryptic species using molecular data, since it can result in detecting lineages with pharmacological properties previously overlooked.

Reference-Based Restriction-Site-Associated DNA Sequencing Data Are Useful for Species Delineation in a Recently Diverged Asexually Reproducing Species Complex (Parmeliaceae, Ascomycota)

“…The delimitation of species in clades with high phenotypical plasticity and consequently a high amount of homoplasy in phenotypical datasets, such as lichen-forming fungi, has been revolutionized by using molecular data [1 -7]. There is a growing body of evidence that cryptic species, which are distinct lineages lacking prominent distinguishing morphological or chemical characters, are common in lichen-forming fungi [2,3,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. In contrast, some populations with clear morphological characteristics have remained unresolved in phylogenetic analyses based on multi-locus genetic data.…”