New Genera: Ertzia & Sulzbacheromyces

For a recent paper establishing the new order Lepidostromatales, we examined the morphological and molecular diversity of the genus Lepidostroma, and it became clear that there were three very different types of species. The core group of four species has rounded to reniform squamules. However, one species is outside of this group and has a microsquamulose thallus that forms contiguous glomerules with a cortex of jig-saw-puzzle-shaped cells. We gave this species its own genus and called it Ertzia akagerae, naming the genus after Damien Ertz, the primary describer of the species. Another species outside of the core group has an entirely crustose thallus, so we gave it a new genus and named it Sulzbacheromyces caatingae. The genus was named for Marcelo Sulzbacher who described the single species with colleagues. Although it's still inconclusive, there also could be photobiont differences associated with the split of these three genera. The samples of Lepidostroma and Sulzbacheromyces from which we were able to obtain algal DNA reads yielded sequences that were very different from one another, but were both from groups not known to be associated with any other types of lichenized fungi.

- Brendan

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Hodkinson, B. P., B. Moncada, and R. Lücking. 2014. Lepidostromatales, a new order of lichenized fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes), with two new genera, Ertzia and Sulzbacheromyces, and one new species, Lepidostroma winklerianum. Fungal Diversity 64(1): 165-179.
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[This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under DEB-0715660.]