Molecular phylogenetic evidence corroborates morphology but not chemistry in the Lepraria neglecta group

The Lepraria neglecta group is a distinctive entity within the sterile, asexually reproducing lichen genus Lepraria whose constituent populations are united by their occurrence in exposed habitats and the development of a pseudocortex on the granules of the thallus. Previous studies have concluded that the group represents a monophyletic entity; however the question of how to classify the chemical variability exhibited within the group has remained unresolved. A phylogeny was inferred from ITS1, 5.8S, and ITS2 sequence data generated from a geographically and chemically broad sampling of populations within the L. neglecta group. While the inferred phylogeny recovered the core L. neglecta group as a strongly supported and monophyletic, the chemotypes within L. neglecta s.l. (i.e., the core-neglecta group excluding L. granulata) were not recovered as monophyletic and relationships within the group largely remain poorly resolved. Based on these results, a pragmatic circumscription for the ...