Teloschistales

Teloschistales
Teloschistes chrysophthalmus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Ascomycota
Class: Lecanoromycetes
Subclass: Lecanoromycetidae
Order: Teloschistales
D.Hawksw. & O.E.Erikss. (1986)
Families

Brigantiaeaceae
Letrouitiaceae
Megalosporaceae
Teloschistaceae

The Teloschistales are an order of mostly lichen-forming fungi belonging to the class Lecanoromycetes in the division Ascomycota. According to one 2008 estimate, the order contains 5 families, 66 genera, and 1954 species.[1] The predominant photobiont partners for the Teloschistales are green algae from the genera Trebouxia and Asterochloris.[2]

Molecular phylogenetics

The higher-level phylogenetic relationships of the Teloschistales and other members of the two major subclasses of Lecanoromycetes, Lecanoromycetidae and Ostropomycetidae, were clarified in a 2018 publication by Kraichak and colleagues. In the Teloschistales, the family Teloschistaceae has a sister taxon relationship with Megalosporaceae, and the clade containing these two families is itself sister to a clade containing families Brigantiaeaceae and Letrouitiaceae.[3]

Teloschistaceae
Megalosporaceae

Megalospora

Austroblastenia

Megaloblastenia marginiflexa

Sipmaniella sulphureofusca

Cladogram showing the phylogeny of some species in representative genera in family Teloschistaceae and in the order Teloschistales; based on Kraichak et al.'s 2018 revised classification of orders and families in Lecanoromycetes (simplified from original).[3]

Habitat and distribution

Species of Teloschistales occur in both maritime and inland settings, and their local diversity can be strongly structured by habitat. On the Commander Islands (Russian Far East), an inventory combining plot-based collecting with molecular identifications recorded 36 species across coastal, tundra and floodplain habitats, with the highest richness in coastal sites and generally poorer plots in tundra. In the same study, arctic-alpine circumpolar taxa predominated in tundra plots, while floodplains supported mainly corticolous and lignicolous species and included circumboreal and amphi-Pacific elements. The archipelago's Teloschistales funga also included taxa otherwise associated with maritime north-east Asia and the western coast of North America alongside more widely distributed boreal and circumpolar species; the authors suggested that island chains such as the Aleutian Islands can act as stepping stones for dispersal between the two continents, and they reported several taxa that may be restricted to the Commander Islands.[4]

Families

References

  1. ^ Kirk PM, Cannon PF, Minter DW, Stalpers JA (2008). Dictionary of the Fungi (10th ed.). Wallingford: CABI. p. 680. ISBN 978-0-85199-826-8.
  2. ^ Thüs, Holger; Muggia, Lucia; Pérez-Ortega, Sergio; Favero-Longo, Sergio E.; Joneson, Suzanne; O’Brien, Heath; Nelsen, Matthew P.; Duque-Thüs, Rhinaixa; Grube, Martin; Friedl, Thomas; Brodie, Juliet; Andrew, Carrie J.; Lücking, Robert; Lutzoni, François; Gueidan, Cécile (2011). "Revisiting photobiont diversity in the lichen family Verrucariaceae (Ascomycota)". European Journal of Phycology. 46 (4): 399–415. Bibcode:2011EJPhy..46..399T. doi:10.1080/09670262.2011.629788.
  3. ^ a b Kraichak, Ekaphan; Huang, Jen-Pan; Nelsen, Matthew; Leavitt, Steven D.; Lumbsch, H. Thorsten (2018). "A revised classification of orders and families in the two major subclasses of Lecanoromycetes (Ascomycota) based on a temporal approach". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 188 (3): 233–249. doi:10.1093/botlinnean/boy060. S2CID 92280920.
  4. ^ Frolov, Ivan V.; Himelbrant, Dmitry E.; Stepanchikova, Irina S.; Prokopiev, Ilya A.; Korznikov, Kirill; Zueva, Anna S. (2025). "The Commander Islands as a hotspot for Teloschistales diversity in the North Pacific: a meeting point for different lichen biotas". The Lichenologist. 57 (3–4): 116–143. doi:10.1017/S0024282925101035.