Molecular studies of Flavopunctelia and Punctelia species and their Trebouxia photobiont from the Himalayas, India

Abstract

Flavopunctelia and Punctelia species collected from Pir Panjal Ranges of Himachal Pradesh, India were studied by morphological, chemical, and phylogenetic methods. Analyses based on a concatenated ITS and LSU data set, confirmed the position of the three Indian taxa within the Parmotrema-clade in Parmeliaceae. The morphology-based taxonomic study reiterated the presence of cryptic species in Flavopunctelia with highly similar morphological characters in different species. The type species, F. flaventior, formed a well-supported monophyletic clade adjacent to F. soredica. In Punctelia, P. borreri was also established as a unique lineage along with P. perreticulata. RPB1 data were not interpreted due to data deficiency. The ITS sequence data and analyses showed Trebouxia photobionts in all the parmelioid species; that of P. borreri was identified as T. gelatinosa, but the photobionts of F. flaventior formed an exclusive clade of an apparently undescribed species of Trebouxia, and the photobiont of F. soredica formed an unresolved basal clade to the Trebouxia sp. of F. flaventior.