New systematics and generic circumscription of parmelioid lichens inferred from multi-gene analysis provided by PARSYS-08.

DIVAKAR P.,CRESPO A.,..........................LUTZONI F.,MAMUSH B.,MATTSSON B.,J.-E.,MESSUTI M.,PERLMUTTER G.,RICO V.,SPRIBILLE T.,SWEAT K.,THELL A.,THOR G.,URBANAVICHUS G. Y LUMBSCH

Asilomar, California, Estados Unidos

Congreso; IAL 6 – ABLS Joint Meeting; 2008

International Association of Lichenology

The generic concept in Parmeliaceae has been widely discussed and different opinions have been expressed in the literatura resulting in widely differing generic classifications. Within the last decade, molecular data have been gathered in numerous studies and revealed that while some of the morphologically based genera were monophyletic, others were not. Parmelioid lichens include a large number of species with a worldwide distribution and the sheer number of species makes it advisable that different research groups join forces in the study of the phylogeny of these lichens. The goals of PARSYS project are to perform an analysis of all available DNA sequence data (from Genbank and newly submitted from several research groups) to address a long-standing issue of lichen taxonomy. Based on a multi-gene phylogeny, a new revised generic concept of parmelioid lichens will be proposed. Genetic markers included in the study comprise nuclear ribosomal regions, such as nuSSU, ITS and nuLSUrDNA, mitochondral SSU rDNA, and RPB1. Single-gene and combined data sets were analyzed using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods.