Journal
MOLECULAR ECOLOGY
Volume 18, Issue 10, Pages 2185-2197Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04183.x
Keywords
foliicolous lichens; genetic variation; haplotype networks; Porinaceae
Funding
- NSF [DEB-0206125]
- Austrian science fund FWF [P15092]
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P15092] Funding Source: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
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Lowland tropical habitats harbour an unexplored genetic diversity of epiphyllous fungi. In the shade of rainforest understoreys, lichenized fungi are specialized to an ephemeral habitat where they produce little vegetative biomass and develop reproductive structures early. In a first population genetic study of epiphyllous lichen fungi, we analysed the intraspecific genetic diversity of five leaf-colonizing lichen mycobiont species. Sampling focused on a lowland perhumid forest plot in Costa Rica, with additional collections from other localities throughout the country. In all species we detected sympatric occurrence of highly diverged haplotypes. Haplotypes belonging to distinct clades in networks were also found on the same leaf, clearly indicating multiple independent colonization events on single leaves. Despite the unusually high genetic diversity of these leaf-colonizing tropical fungi, we did not detect pronounced spatial structure of the haplotype distribution between geographical regions. The observed patterns suggest that the diversity of foliicolous lichens could be much higher than expected, with several cryptic genetic lineages within each morphologically characterized species.
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