Phylogenetic placement within Lecanoromycetes of lichenicolous fungi associated with cladonia and some other genera

Though most of the lichenicolous fungi belong to the Ascomycetes, their phylogenetic placement based on molecular data is lacking for numerous species. In this study the phylogenetic placement of 19 species of lichenicolous fungi was determined using four loci (LSU rDNA, SSU rDNA, ITS rDNA and mtSSU). The phylogenetic analyses revealed that the studied lichenicolous fungi are widespread across the phylogeny of Lecanoromycetes. One species is placed in Acarosporales, Sarcogyne sphaerospora; five species in Dactylosporaceae, Dactylospora ahtii, D. deminuta, D. glaucoides, D. parasitica and Dactylospora sp.; four species belong to Lecanorales, Lichenosticta alcicorniaria, Epicladonia simplex, E. stenospora and Scutula epiblastematica. The genus Epicladonia is polyphyletic and the type E. sandstedei belongs to Leotiomycetes. Phaeopyxis punctum and Bachmanniomyces uncialicola form a well supported clade in the Ostropomycetidae. Epigloea soleiformis is related to Arthrorhaphis and Anzina. Four species are placed in Ostropales, Corticifraga peltigerae, Cryptodiscus epicladonia, C. galaninae and C. cladoniicola comb. nov. (= Lettauia cladoniicola). Three new species are described, Dactylospora ahtii, Cryptodiscus epicladonia and C. galaninae.
This study has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. PIEF-GA-2013-625653 ‘CLADOF’. R. Pino-Bodas thanks the MINECO for a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación no. 2015-23526 support. Study of M.P. Zhurbenko was carried out within the framework of the research project of the Komarov Botanical Institute Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Russia) no. 01201255602 and financially supported by the grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research no. 14-04-01031 ‘Lichenicolous fungi of Northwest Caucasus