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Understanding phenotypical character evolution in parmelioid lichenized fungi (Parmeliaceae, Ascomycota).

Authors :
Divakar PK
Kauff F
Crespo A
Leavitt SD
Lumbsch HT
Source :
PloS one [PLoS One] 2013 Nov 29; Vol. 8 (11), pp. e83115. Date of Electronic Publication: 2013 Nov 29 (Print Publication: 2013).
Publication Year :
2013

Abstract

Parmelioid lichens form a species-rich group of predominantly foliose and fruticose lichenized fungi encompassing a broad range of morphological and chemical diversity. Using a multilocus approach, we reconstructed a phylogeny including 323 OTUs of parmelioid lichens and employed ancestral character reconstruction methods to understand the phenotypical evolution within this speciose group of lichen-forming fungi. Specifically, we were interested in the evolution of growth form, epicortex structure, and cortical chemistry. Since previous studies have shown that results may differ depending on the reconstruction method used, here we employed both maximum-parsimony and maximum-likelihood approaches to reconstruct ancestral character states. We have also implemented binary and multistate coding of characters and performed parallel analyses with both coding types to assess for potential coding-based biases. We reconstructed the ancestral states for nine well-supported major clades in the parmelioid group, two higher-level sister groups and the ancestral character state for all parmelioid lichens. We found that different methods for coding phenotypical characters and different ancestral character state reconstruction methods mostly resulted in identical reconstructions but yield conflicting inferences of ancestral states, in some cases. However, we found support for the ancestor of parmelioid lichens having been a foliose lichen with a non-pored epicortex and pseudocyphellae. Our data suggest that some traits exhibit patterns of evolution consistent with adaptive radiation.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1932-6203
Volume :
8
Issue :
11
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
PloS one
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
24312438
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083115