Miocene and Pliocene dominated diversification of the lichen-forming fungal genus Melanohalea (Parmeliaceae, Ascomycota) and Pleistocene population expansions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Factors promoting diversification in lichen symbioses remain largely unexplored. While Pleistocene events have been important for driving diversification and affecting distributions in many groups, recent estimates suggest that major radiations within some genera in the largest clade of macrolichens (Parmeliaceae, Ascomycota) vastly predate the Pleistocene. To better understand the temporal placement and sequence of diversification events in lichens, we estimated divergence times in a common lichen-forming fungal genus, Melanohalea, in the Northern Hemisphere. Divergence times were estimated using both concatenated gene tree and coalescent-based multilocus species tree approaches to assess the temporal context of major radiation events within Melanohalea. In order to com

SUBMITTER: Leavitt SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3499221 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature