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Phylogenetic study of Catapyrenium s.str. (Verrucariaceae, lichen-forming Ascomycota) and related genus Placidiopsis

     ¹ Dept. Biología y Geología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, C/Tulipán s/n; Dep. I. Desp. 216, Móstoles, Madrid, 28933, Spain
² Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Mostoles, Madrid, Spain
³ Deparment of Biology and Geology, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, C tulipan S/N, Mostoles, Madrid, 28931, Spain
⁴ Dept of Biology, Duke Univ, Box 90338, Durham, NC, 27708, United States of America

The current classification of what used to be called Catapyrenium comprises eight different genera belonging to distinct lineages in the Verrucariaceae. Previous phylogenetic studies have shown that the redefined genus Catapyrenium (Catapyrenium s.str.) is monophyletic and sister to Placidiopsis within the Staurothele group, but was based on only two species from each genus. We conducted a phylogenetic study of Catapyrenium and Placidiopsis, as currently delimited, to evaluate the monophyly of each genus and infer infrageneric relationships. A first phylogenetic analysis was done at the family level based on the nuLSU locus by implementing a backbone constraint tree (using both weighted Maximum Parsimony and bootstrap Maximum Likelihood approaches) summarizing previously well supported groups, in order to define the ingroup for a second phylogenetic analysis based on nuITS and nuLSU and centered on Catapyrenium s.str. and Placidiopsis. Placidiopsis was found to be monophyletic, whereas Catapyrenium s.str. was not. Catapyrenium dactylinum was found to be closely related to Placopyrenium caeruleopulvinum and Placopyrenium stanfordii, all of which were closely related to Placocarpus schaereri and Verrucula. In addition, we found the genus Placopyrenium to be polyphyletic. The resulting trees confirmed that Catapyrenium s.str. (excluding C. dactylinum) and Placidiopsis constitute two sister monophyletic entities. The data does not support Placidiopsis cinerascens and P. tenella as two distinct species, since no characters can be used to distinguish them. Thus, P. tenella is here reduced to synonymy with P. cinerascens.

Key words: backbone constraint tree, Placopyrenium s.str., spore septation, synonymy, phylogeny