Thorsten Lumbsch

Field Museum of Natural History · Science & Education

Accurate species delimitations are fundamental to our understanding of the genetic diversity on Earth and a vital part in evolutionary and conservation biology research. In lichenized fungi, species pairs have the same morphology and chemistry. They only differ in how they reproduce with one species using sexual reproductive structures and the othe...

Nearly 90% of fungal diversity, one of the most speciose branches in the tree of life, remains undescribed. Lichenized fungi as symbiotic associations are still a challenge for species delimitation, and current species diversity is vastly underestimated. The ongoing democratization of Next-Generation Sequencing is turning the tables. Particularly,...

Poengsungnoen, V., Meethong, U., Buaruang, K., Boonpragob, K. & Lumbsch, H. T. 2022. New records of corticolous and foliicolous lichens from Thailand. – Herzogia 35: 621– 629. Seven species of corticolous and foliicolous lichens are recorded for the first time for Thailand. Four species are new to Asia: Acanthotrema brasilianum, Cruentotrema amazon...

Novel species of fungi described in this study include those from various countries as follows: Argentina , Colletotrichum araujiae on leaves, stems and fruits of Araujia hortorum . Australia , Agaricus pateritonsus on soil, Curvularia fraserae on dying leaf of Bothriochloa insculpta , Curvularia millisiae from yellowing leaf tips of Cyperus aromat...

Acrogenospora stellata De la Peña-Lastra, A. Mateos & Quijada, sp. nov. Fungal Planet 1436 – Persoonia 49, 2022: 261– 350

Anteaglonium lusitanicum A. Mateos, S. De la Peña-Lastra & M. Serrano, sp. nov. on decaying wood of Prunus lusitanica subsp. lusitanica

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms or stress-tolerant extremophiles, potentially playing a core role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems. Epiphytic macrolichens are known to contribute to the water- and nutrient cycles in forest ecosystem. But due to the scarcity of fossil record, the evolutionary history of epiphytic macrolic...

Recent studies have demonstrated that species boundaries among the lichen-forming fungi are in need of revision with the discovery of cryptic species in numerous clades, especially in parmelioid lichens. Here we focus on addressing the species boundaries in Canoparmelia texana, a sorediate species with a pantropical distribution that extends into t...

Tropical regions harbor a substantial diversity of lichenized fungi, but face numerous threats to their persistence, often even before previously unknown species have been described and their evolutionary relationships have been elucidated. Megalaria (Ramalinaceae) is a lichen-forming genus of fungi that produces crustose thalli, and includes a num...

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 phylogenet...

Lumbsch, H. T. & Trk, R. 2022. Varicellaria velata occurs in the Alps. Herzogia 35: 174 176. Varicellaria velata in its current circumscription has a worldwide distribution and is common in tropical and subtropical habitats but also extends into the temperate zone. In Europe it has a subatlantic distribution and has also been recorded from a single...

While advances in sequencing technologies have been invaluable for understanding evolutionary relationships, increasingly large genomic data sets may result in conflicting evolutionary signals which are often caused by biological processes, including hybridization. Hybridization has been detected in a variety of organisms, influencing evolutionary...

This paper provides an updated classification of the Kingdom Fungi (including fossil fungi) and fungus-like taxa. Five-hundred and twenty-three (535) notes are provided for newly introduced taxa and for changes that have been made since the previous outline. In the discussion, the latest taxonomic changes in Basidiomycota are provided and the class...

Lichen associations are overwhelmingly supported by carbon produced by photosynthetic algal symbionts. These algae have diversified to occupy nearly all climates and continents; however, we have a limited understanding of how their climatic niches have evolved through time. Here we extend previous work and ask whether phylogenetic signal in, and th...

The Red Queen dynamic is often brought into play for antagonistic relationships. However, the coevolutionary effects of mutualistic interactions, which predict slower evolution for interacting organisms (Red King), have been investigated to a lesser extent. Lichens are a stable, mutualistic relationship of fungi and cyanobacteria and/or algae, whic...

We assessed the status of two New Zealand endemic morphodemes in the genus Sticta, currently treated as two separate taxa, Sticta filix and Sticta lacera. Both are green-algal lichens with a distinct stipe that grow in forested habitats and are suitable indicators of the indigenous vegetation health in forest ecosystems in New Zealand. They exhibit...

We assessed the status of two New Zealand endemic morphodemes in the genus Sticta, currently treated as two separate taxa, Sticta filix and Sticta lacera. Both are green-algal lichens with a distinct stipe that grow in forested habitats and are suitable indicators of the indigenous vegetation health in forest ecosystems in New Zealand. They exhibit...

Species delimitation among closely related species is challenging because traditional phenotype-based approaches, for example, using morphology, ecological, or chemical characteristics, may not coincide with natural groupings. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing, it has become increasingly cost-effective to acquire genome-scale data which...

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms or stress-tolerant extremophiles playing a core role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems, of which epiphytic lichens make a distinct contribution to the water-cycle and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystem. But due to the scarcity of relevant fossil records, the evolutionary history of epiphy...

Genomic sequence of Fusarium pilosicola

A key to the identification of the 258 genera of lichenized fungi in Thailand is presented. Species names are provided for genera for which only a single species has been recorded for Thailand. Recent available keys that include all species known from Thailand are referenced. The replacement name Ionaspis aptrootii is proposed for I. tropica Aptroo...

Antarctic lichens (Usnea) near Carlini station on King George Island, January 2016 (Elisa Lagostina).

Rapid radiations in Fungi are only beginning to be studied with phylogenomic data. The evolutionary history of the lichenized fungal order Peltigerales has not been well resolved, particularly for the Collematineae. Here, we used concatenation and coalescent-based species tree methods to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Peltigerales based on sequen...

The genus Xanthoparmelia is the largest genus of lichen- forming fungi with about 800 species worldwide. Xanthoparmelia is also common in the deserts of central Mexico, but only a few molecular studies exist on its species’ diversity in this region. In this study, we sampled 38 Xanthoparmelia species from around the world including species from the...

Lichens are classic models of symbiosis, and one of the most frequent nutritional modes among fungi. The ecologically and geographically widespread lichen-forming algal (LFA) genus Trebouxia is one of the best-studied groups of LFA and associates with over 7000 fungal species. Despite its importance, little is known about its diversification. We sy...

Species delimitation among closely related species is challenging because traditional phenotype-based approaches, e.g., morphology, ecological, or chemical characteristics, often produce conflicting results. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing, it has become increasingly cost-effective to acquire genome-scale data which can resolve previo...

Sticta is a subcosmopolitan genus most diverse in the tropics. Traditionally, many taxa were considered to be widespread and morphologically variable, following broadly circumscribed morphodemes. Among these is the S. weigelii morphodeme, characterized by a cyanobacterial photobiont and rather narrow, flabellate to truncate or tapering lobes produc...

There were errors in the name of author László G. Nagy and in affiliation no. 31 in the original publication. The original article has been corrected.

Aim Phylogenetic diversification is a precursor to speciation, but the underlying patterns and processes are not well‐studied in lichens. Here we investigate what factors drive diversification in two tropical, morphologically similar macrolichens that occupy a similar range but differ in altitudinal and habitat preferences, testing for isolation by...

Background Regions within the nuclear ribosomal operon are a major tool for inferring evolutionary relationships and investigating diversity in fungi. In spite of the prevalent use of ribosomal markers in fungal research, central features of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) evolution are poorly characterized for fungi in general, including lichenized...

Draft genomes of the fungal species Ambrosiella cleistominuta, Cercospora brassicicola, C. citrullina, Physcia stellaris, and Teratosphaeria pseudoeucalypti are presented. Physcia stellaris is an important lichen forming fungus and Ambrosiella cleistominuta is an ambrosia beetle symbiont. Cercospora brassicicola and C. citrullina are agriculturally...

Lichens are widely utilized as indicators of air quality, forest health and climate change. In Central Europe, specific lichens have been designated as climate change indicators; however, the lichen biota of central Europe has been substantially altered by air pollution and only re-established during the past decades—complicating the interpretation...

Parmeliaceae is the largest family of lichen-forming fungi with a worldwide distribution. We used a target enrichment data set and a qualitative selection method for 250 out of 350 genes to infer the phylogeny of the major clades in this family including 81 taxa, with both subfamilies and all seven major clades previously recognized in the subfamil...

Lichens have traditionally been considered the symbiotic phenotype from the interactions of a single fungal partner and one or few photosynthetic partners. However, lichen symbioses have been shown to be far more complex and may include a wider range of other interacting organisms, including non-photosynthetic bacteria, accessory fungi, and algae....

The cryptic lifestyle of most fungi necessitates molecular identiication of the guild in environmental studies. Over the past decades, rapid development and afordability of molecular tools have tremendously improved insights of the fungal diversity in all ecosystems and habitats. Yet, in spite of the progress of molecular methods, knowledge about f...

Aim The Southern Ocean landmasses have intrigued biologists for centuries because they share many taxonomic groups. Such disjunct taxa can provide insight into evolutionary processes that connect populations or drive divergence. The lichenized fungus Pseudocyphellaria glabra, for example, has a disjunct distribution—separated by the Tasman Sea and...

Traditional taxonomic studies provide only a limited understanding of species richness within a group. Their usefulness for assessing species diversity could also be limited as many lack sufficient sampling and/or fail to integrate different data types for assessing species boundaries. To explore the challenges and limitations of estimating species...

The website http://outlineoffungi.org, is launched to provide a continuous up-to-date classification of the kingdom Fungi (including fossil fungi) and fungus-like taxa. This is based on 1516 recent publications and on the outline of fungi and fungus-like taxa published recently (Mycosphere 11, 1060-1456, Doi: 10.5943/mycosphere/11/1/8). The website...

The website http://outlineoffungi.org, is launched to provide a continuous up-to-date classification of the kingdom Fungi (including fossil fungi) and fungus-like taxa. This is based on 1516 recent publications and on the outline of fungi and fungus-like taxa published recently (Mycosphere 11, 1060-1456, Doi: 10.5943/mycosphere/11/1/8). The website...

Lichen-forming fungi are known to produce a large number of secondary metabolites. Some metabolites are deposited in the cortical layer of the lichen thallus where they exert important ecological functions, such as UV filtering. The fact that closely related lineages of lichen-forming fungi can differ in cortical chemistry suggests that natural pro...

The species of the Parmelia saxatilis complex occurring in the Iberian Peninsula were revised. Eight species are accepted, including a new species found in southern Spain, described as P. rojoi A. Crespo, V. J. Rico & Divakar. The new species, which forms a sister-group relationship with P. saxatilis s. str., is rare in the Iberian Peninsula and is...

Significance Symbioses are evolutionarily and ecologically widespread, yet we lack a robust understanding of their origins, losses, and macroevolutionary consequences. We traced the evolution of partner choice and phenotype in lichens—a classic model of symbiosis—and revealed shifts among symbiont groups and phenotypic evolution. Symbiont switches...

Abstract Lichens provide valuable systems for studying symbiotic interactions. In lichens, these interactions are frequently described in terms of availability, selectivity and specificity of the mycobionts and photobionts towards one another. The lichen-forming, green algal genus Trebouxia Puymaly is among the most widespread photobiont, associati...

Arid soil habitats are challenging for sedentary and slow-growing lichens because the integrity of the substrate can easily be disturbed by natural forces, e.g., wind and flood. Yet, adaptation into such habitat types occurred multiple times in lichens that may be associated with specific morphological and ecological adaptations. We studied the gen...

Lichens of the Ramalina siliquosa complex dominate seashore cliffs in Europe and South-East Asia, but their taxonomy has been vigorously debated for over a century. On many cliffs, they exhibit a bewildering zonation of chemotypes that resembles the classic zonation of organisms that occupy the littoral zone below. Do the chemotypes represent separ...

Lichens provide valuable systems for studying symbiotic interactions. In lichens, these interactions are frequently described in terms of availability, selectivity and specificity of the mycobionts and photobionts towards one another. The lichen-forming, green algal genus Trebouxia Puymaly is among the most widespread photobiont, associating with a...

This article provides an outline of the classification of the kingdom Fungi (including fossil fungi. i.e. dispersed spores, mycelia, sporophores, mycorrhizas). We treat 19 phyla of fungi. These are Aphelidiomycota, Ascomycota, Basidiobolomycota, Basidiomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Calcarisporiellomycota, Caulochytriomycota, Chytridiomycota, Entomoph...

This article provides an outline of the classification of the kingdom Fungi (including fossil fungi. i.e. dispersed spores, mycelia, sporophores, mycorrhizas). We treat 19 phyla of fungi. These are Aphelidiomycota, Ascomycota, Basidiobolomycota, Basidiomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Calcarisporiellomycota, Caulochytriomycota, Chytridiomycota, Entomoph...

Lichens have traditionally been considered the symbiotic phenotype from the interactions of a single fungal partner and one or few photosynthetic partners. However, the lichen symbiosis has been shown to be far more complex and may include a wide range of other interacting organisms, including non-photosynthetic bacteria, accessory fungi, and algae...

Advancements in molecular genetics have revealed that hybridization may be common among plants, animals, and fungi, playing a role in evolutionary dynamics and speciation. While hybridization has been well-documented in pathogenic fungi, the effects of these processes on speciation in fungal lineages with different life histories and ecological nic...

Hawaiian lichen species have been thought to be widespread, with low endemism. Nine species of the genus Sticta (Peltigeraceae subfamily Lobarioideae) have previously been reported for Hawaii, all supposedly cosmopolitan or Pantropical or widespread in the Paleotropics except for the putative endemic S. plumbicolor. This study is the first one empl...

Background: Regions within the nuclear ribosomal operon are a major tool for inferring evolutionary relationships and investigating diversity in fungi. In spite of the prevalent use of ribosomal markers in fungal research, central features of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) evolution are poorly characterized for fungi in general, including lichenized...

Background: Regions within the nuclear ribosomal operon are a major tool for inferring evolutionary relationships and investigating diversity in fungi. In spite of the prevalent use of ribosomal markers in fungal research, central features of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) evolution are poorly characterized for fungi in general, including lichenized...

Abstract Dothideomycetes is the most diverse fungal class in Ascomycota and includes species with a wide range of lifestyles. Previous multilocus studies have investigated the taxonomic and evolutionary relationships of these taxa but often failed to resolve early diverging nodes and frequently generated inconsistent placements of some clades. Here...

The ‘competition-relatedness’ hypothesis postulates that co-occurring taxa should be more distantly related, because of lower competition. This hypothesis has been criticized for its dependence on untested assumptions and its exclusion of other assembly forces beyond competition and habitat filtering to explain the co-existence of closely related t...

Regions within the nuclear ribosomal operon are a major tool for inferring evolutionary relationships and investigating diversity in fungi. In spite of the prevalent use of ribosomal markers in fungal research, central features of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) evolution are poorly characterized for fungi in general, including lichenized fungi. The...