Chirleja buckii, a new genus and species

Recently I co-authored a paper describing a new genus and species from Tierra del Fuego in southern South America. The new genus is Chirleja, named after the local word for lichen/moss in the particular part of the world where it was found. The species is C. buckii, named after Bill Buck, who found it on an NSF-funded expedition. It was published in the New Zealand Journal of Botany, the premiere journal for botany in the southern hemisphere.

Chirleja buckii (scale = 0.5 mm)

We used molecular data from the mtSSU locus to infer the placement of the species in the family Icmadophilaceae, and we could also tell from these analyses that it did not fit within any of the described genera in the family. Many other sterile crustose lichens like this one represent new lineages of fungi that have not previously been described. Our research into crustose lichens is therefore helping to fill in unknown parts of the fungal tree of life and better illuminating the evolutionary history of the fungi.

- Brendan

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Reference

Lendemer, J. C., and B. P. Hodkinson. 2012. Chirleja buckii, a new genus and species of lichenized fungi from Tierra del Fuego, southern South America. New Zealand Journal of Botany 50(4): 449-456.
Download publication (PDF file)
View data and analysis files (website)

Caloplaca reptans, an enigmatic sterile lichen

I recently published a paper in Systematic Botany detailing a case in which DNA and bioinformatics finally made it possible to describe an enigmatic sterile lichen species known from the Appalachian Mountains.

Since sexual characteristics are the primary way that fungi are classified, this sterile species could not be put into our current classification based on how it looks.  The small grayish-greenish species described in the paper (Caloplaca reptans) was known for years in the Appalachian Mountains because it is so distinctive.  However, it was never described formally because no one could figure out what its closest relatives were (and since the genus was uncertain, it could not be given a binomial). We used our DNA-based approach to infer its phylogeny and found that it is closely related to members of the genus Caloplaca, a genus in which most of the species are bright orange or similarly colored.  We can now say that its placement makes sense based on some of its other characteristics, but no one would have guessed that it was just an odd member of that group, one that has apparently lost its ability to make the brightly-colored pigments.

A small, isolated thallus of Caloplaca reptans on rock (scale = 0.5 mm)

I am continuing to conduct research using molecular sequences and bioinformatics to discover and describe new lifeforms so that we can better understand the planet's biodiversity.  Be on the lookout for more papers in the future along these lines!

- Brendan

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Reference

Hodkinson, B. P. and J. C. Lendemer. 2012. Phylogeny and taxonomy of an enigmatic sterile lichen. Systematic Botany 37(4): 835-844.
Download publication (PDF file)
View data and analysis file webportal (website)