Additions to Lichen Distribution in the Mississippi Valley

During the last few years I have examined a large number of lichens from various parts of the Mississippi Valley, and a few of these have never been recorded from the states in which they were collected, either in my own papers, or, so far as I know, in other publications. In a paper read before the botanical section of the A.A.A.S. at the Columbus meeting I made mention of some of these plants, but several are of special interest because rare or difficult to detect, and I have thought it worthwhile to record all for distribution. Aside from a single collection by myself in Illinois, the collectors are L. H. Pammel, E. Bartholomew, C. J. Herrick, C. H. Demetrio and R. Dunlevy. The collection made by Professor Pammel at La Crosse, Wis., is of special interest because it contains an unusually large number of interesting lichens for a small collection. With the exception of the single specimen from Illinois, the plants are all recorded from states whose lichen flora are little known; hence the record is the more needed

The importance of habitat islands in the preservation of relict xerothermic and calcicolous epigeic lichens based on the example of the “Ostnicowe Parowy Gruczna” nature reserve (N Poland)

The objective of this paper is to discuss the role of environmental islands isolated in the agricultural landscape in the pres- ervation of xerothermic and calcicolous epigeic lichens. The site of lichens associated with relict steppe vegetation, rare in northern Poland, has been preserved in the reserve “Ostnicowe Parowy Gruczna”. The list of lichen taxa identified in the study area comprises 16 species that are very rare in lowland, e.g. Gyalolechia fulgens, Heppia adglutinata, Squamarina lentigera, Endocarpon pusillum, Gyalolechia bracteata, Placidium squamulosum and Toninia sedifolia. In many places, the lichens associated with dry grasslands become extinct despite the optimum light conditions. These lichen species are sensitive to the impact of agriculture. Preservation of epigeic lichens’ localities is possible in specific habitat conditions when they are isolated from surface runoff of fertile farm water

Iowa Lichens: An Annotated Listing

The previous listings of Iowa lichens were compiled in the l890\u27s and early 1900\u27s and represented collections primarily from three Iowa counties. In the intervening years, several listings of local lichens have been published. The lichen flora of Iowa as presented here consists of 74 genera with 263 species and is a compilation of previously reported species, of herbarium specimens, and of observations made by the authors. A notation of habitat follows each entry in addition to the general listing of lichens found in similar habits summarized in the discussion

Should we hail the Red King: evolutionary consequences of a mutualistic lifestyle in genomes of lichenized fungi

The Red Queen dynamic is often brought into play for antagonistic relationships. However, the coevolutionary effects of mutualistic interactions, which predict slower evolution for interacting organisms (Red King), have been investigated to a lesser extent. Lichens are a stable, mutualistic relationship of fungi and cyanobacteria and/ or algae, which originated several times independently during the evolution of fungi. Therefore, they represent a suitable system to investigate the coevolutionary effect of mutualism on the fungal genome. We measured substitution rates and selective pressure of about 2000 protein-coding genes (plus the rDNA region) in two different classes of Ascomycota, each consisting of closely related lineages of lichenized and non-lichenized fungi. Our results show that independent lichenized clades are characterized by significantly slower rates for both synonymous and non-synonymous substitutions. We hypothesize that this evolutionary pattern is connected to the lichen life cycle (longer generation time of lichenized fungi) rather than a result of different selection strengths, which is described as the main driver for the Red Kind dynamic. This first empirical evidence of slower evolution in lichens provides an important insight on how biotic cooperative interactions are able to shape the evolution of symbiotic organisms