Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:43:35.035Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Taitaia, a novel lichenicolous fungus in tropical montane forests in Kenya (East Africa)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2018

Ave SUIJA ,
Ulla KAASALAINEN ,
Paul Muigai KIRIKA  and
Jouko RIKKINEN
Ave SUIJA
Affiliation:
Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Lai Street 40, EE-51005, Estonia. Email: ave.suija@ut.ee
Ulla KAASALAINEN
Affiliation:
Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 7, FIN-00014Finland East African Herbarium, National Museums of Kenya, Museum Hill Road, P.O. Box 45166, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Paul Muigai KIRIKA
Affiliation:
East African Herbarium, National Museums of Kenya, Museum Hill Road, P.O. Box 45166, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Jouko RIKKINEN
Affiliation:
Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 7, FIN-00014Finland Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, FIN-00014Finland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During lichenological explorations of tropical montane forests in Kenya, a remarkable new lichenicolous fungus was repeatedly found growing on thalli of the epiphytic tripartite cyanolichen Crocodia cf. clathrata. Molecular phylogenetic analyses placed the fungus within Gomphillaceae (Ostropales, Lecanoromycetes), a family mainly of lichen-symbiotic species in the tropics. The anatomical features (unitunicate, non-amyloid asci and simple, septate paraphyses) as well as the hemiangiocarpic ascoma development confirm its taxonomic affinity. DNA sequence data showed the closest relationship was with Gyalidea fritzei, followed by Corticifraga peltigerae. A monotypic genus, Taitaia, is introduced to incorporate a single species, T. aurea. The new fungus is characterized by aggregated ascomata with yellow margins and salmon red discs developing from a single base.

Keywords

AscomycotaCorticifragaGyalidealichen-inhabiting fungiTaita Hillstaxonomy
Type
Articles
Information
The Lichenologist , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , March 2018 , pp. 173 - 184
Copyright
© British Lichen Society, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baloch, E., Lücking, R., Lumbsch, H. T. & Wedin, M. (2010) Major clades and phylogenetic relationships between lichenized and non-lichenized lineages in Ostropales (Ascomycota: Lecanoromycetes). Taxon 59: 1483–1494.Google Scholar
Bock, C., Hauck, M. & Fischer, E. (2007) The lichen flora of Rwanda: an annotated checklist. Willdenowia 37: 563–575.Google Scholar
Burgess, N. D., Butynski, T. M., Cordeiro, N. J., Doggart, N. H., Fjeldsa, J., Howell, K. M., Kilahama, F. B., Loader, S. P., Lovett, J. C., Mbilinyi, B., et al. (2007) The biological importance of the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya. Biological Conservation 134: 209–231.Google Scholar
Cornejo, C. & Scheidegger, C. (2013) New morphological aspects of cephalodium formation in the lichen Lobaria pulmonaria (Lecanorales, Ascomycota). Lichenologist 45: 77–87.Google Scholar
Darriba, D., Taboada, G. L., Doallo, R. & Posada, D. (2012) jModelTest 2: more models, new heuristics and parallel computing. Nature Methods 9: 772.Google Scholar
Dimitrov, D., Nogués-Bravo, D. & Scharff, N. (2012) Why do tropical mountains support exceptionally high biodiversity? The Eastern Arc Mountains and the drivers of Saintpaulia diversity. PLoS ONE 7: e48908.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edgar, R. C. (2004) MUSCLE: multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Research 32: 1792–1797.Google Scholar
Enroth, J., Nyqvist, P., Malombe, I., Pellikka, P. & Rikkinen, J. (2013) Additions to the moss flora of the Taita Hills and Mount Kasigau, Kenya. Polish Botanical Journal 58: 495–510.Google Scholar
Ertz, D. (2009) Revision of the corticolous Opegrapha species from the Paleotropics. Bibliotheca Lichenologica 102: 1–176.Google Scholar
Etayo, J. (2010) Hongos liquenícolas de Perú: homenaje a Rolf Santesson. Bulletin de la Société Linnéenne de Provence 61: 1–46.Google Scholar
Etayo, J. & Diederich, P. (2001) Gyalideopsis floridae, sp. nov. a new lichenicolous lichen from Florida (Gomphillaceae, Ascomycetes). Bryologist 104: 130–133.Google Scholar
Fryday, A. M. (2015) A new checklist of lichenised, lichenicolous and allied fungi reported from South Africa. Bothalia 45: 59–122.Google Scholar
Garbelotto, M. M., Lee, H. K., Slaughter, G., Popenuck, T., Cobb, F. W. & Bruns, T. D. (1997) Heterokaryosis is not required for virulence of Heterobasidion annosum . Mycologia 89: 92–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, O. L., James, P. W. & Woods, R. G. (2009) Gyalidea Lettau (1937). In The Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland (C. W. Smith, A. Aptroot, B. J. Coppins, A. Fletcher, O. L. Gilbert, P. W. James & P. A. Wolseley, eds): 421–423. London: British Lichen Society.Google Scholar
Gouy, M., Guindon, S. & Gascuel, O. (2010) SeaView version 4: a multiplatform graphical user interface for sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree building. Molecular Biology and Evolution 27: 221–224.Google Scholar
Guindon, S., Dufayard, J.-F., Lefort, V., Anisimova, M., Hordijk, W. & Gascuel, O. (2010) New algorithms and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogenies: assessing the performance of PhyML 3.0. Systematic Biology 59: 307–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawksworth, D. L. & Miadlikowska, J. (1997) New species of lichenicolous fungi occurring on Peltigera in Ecuador and Europe. Mycological Research 101: 1127–1134.Google Scholar
Hawksworth, D. L. & Santesson, R. (1990) A revision of the lichenicolous fungi previously referred to Phragmonaevia . Bibliotheca Lichenologica 38: 121–143.Google Scholar
Henssen, A. & Lücking, R. (2002) Morphology, anatomy, and ontogeny in the Asterothyriaceae (Ascomycota: Ostropales), a misunderstood group of lichenized fungi. Annales Botanici Fennici 39: 273–299.Google Scholar
Jaklitsch, W., Baral, H.-O., Lücking, R. & Lumbsch, H. T. (2016) Syllabus of Plant Families, Volume 1/2: Ascomycota. Stuttgart: Gebrüder Borntraeger Verlag.Google Scholar
Kondratyuk, S. Y. & Galloway, D. J. (1995) Lichenicolous fungi and chemical patterns in Pseudocyphellaria . Bibliotheca Lichenologica 57: 327–345.Google Scholar
Lawrey, J. D. & Diederich, P. (2016) Lichenicolous fungi – worldwide checklist, including isolated cultures and sequences available. URL: http://www.lichenicolous.net [accessed: 9/5/2017].Google Scholar
Lücking, R., Stuart, B. L. & Lumbsch, H. T. (2004) Phylogenetic relationships of Gomphillaceae and Asterothyriaceae: evidence from a combined Bayesian analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial sequences. Mycologia 96: 283–294.Google Scholar
Lumbsch, H. T., Schmitt, I., Lücking, R., Wiklund, E. & Wedin, M. (2007) The phylogenetic placement of Ostropales within Lecanoromycetes (Ascomycota) revisited. Mycological Research 111: 257–267.Google Scholar
Malombe, I., Matheka, K. W., Pócs, T. & Patiño, J. (2016) The ecological response of epiphyllous bryophytes to human-induced edges in Afromontane fragmented forests. Journal of Bryology 38: 33–46.Google Scholar
Miller, M. A., Pfeiffer, W. & Schwartz, T. (2010) Creating the CIPRES Science Gateway for inference of large phylogenetic trees. In Proceedings of the Gateway Computing Environments Workshop (GCE), 14 November 2010, New Orleans, Louisiana, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar
Myers, N., Mittermeier, R. A., Mittermeier, C. G., da Fonseca, G. A. B. & Kent, J. (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403: 853–858.Google Scholar
Pino-Bodas, R., Zhurbenko, M. P. & Stenroos, S. (2017) Phylogenetic placement within Lecanoromycetes of lichenicolous fungi associated with Cladonia and some other genera. Persoonia 39: 91–117.Google Scholar
Rikkinen, J. (2017) Cyanobacteria in terrestrial symbiotic systems. In Modern Topics in the Phototrophic Prokaryotes. Environmental and Applied Aspects (P. Hallenbeck, ed.): 243–294. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.Google Scholar
Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D. L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Liu, L., Suchard, M. A. & Huelsenbeck, J. P. (2012) MrBayes 3.2: efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Systematic Biology 61: 539–542.Google Scholar
Stam, Å., Enroth, J., Malombe, I., Pellikka, P. & Rikkinen, J. (2017) Experimental transplants reveal strong environmental effects on the growth of non-vascular epiphytes in Afromontane Forests. Biotropica 11: 862–870.Google Scholar
Stamatakis, A. (2014) RAxML version 8: a tool for phylogenetic analysis and post-analysis of large phylogenies. Bioinformatics 30: 1312–1313.Google Scholar
Swinscow, T. D. V. & Krog, H. (1988) Macrolichens of East Africa. London: British Museum (Natural History).Google Scholar
Talavera, G. & Castresana, J. (2007) Improvement of phylogenies after removing divergent and ambiguously aligned blocks from protein sequence alignments. Systematic Biology 56: 564–577.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tedersoo, L., Jairus, T., Horton, B. M., Abarenkov, K., Suvi, T., Saar, I. & Kõljalg, U. (2008) Strong host preference of ectomycorrhizal fungi in a Tasmanian wet sclerophyll forest as revealed by DNA barcoding and taxon-specific primers. New Phytologist 180: 479–490.Google Scholar
Vězda, A. (1987) Flechtensystematische Studien XII. Die Familie Gomphillaceae und ihre Gliederung. Folia Geobotanica et Phytotaxonomica 22: 179–198.Google Scholar
Vilgalys, R. & Hester, M. (1990) Rapid genetic identification and mapping of enzymatically amplified ribosomal DNA from several Cryptococcus species. Journal of Bacteriology 172: 4238–4246.Google Scholar
White, T. M., Bruns, T., Lee, S. & Taylor, J. (1990) Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA for phylogenetics. In PCR Protocols: a Guide to Methods and Applications (M. A. Innis, D. H. Gelfand, J. J. Sninsky & T. J. White, eds): 315–321. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Zhurbenko, M. (2007) Corticifraga santessonii and C. chugachiana (Lecanoromycetes, Ascomycota), new species of lichenicolous fungi from the Holarctic. Lichenologist 39: 221–226.Google Scholar
Zoller, S., Scheidegger, C. & Sperisen, C. (1999) PCR primers for the amplification of mitochondrial small subunit ribosomal DNA of lichen-forming ascomycetes. Lichenologist 31: 511–516.Google Scholar