SPECIES DELIMITATION IN THE LICHENIZED FUNGAL GENUS VULPICIDA (PARMELIACEAE, ASCOMYCOTA) USING GENE CONCATENATION AND COALESCENT-BASED SPECIES TREE APPROACHES

摘要

Premise of the study: Species boundaries in many organism groups are still in a state of flux, and for empirical species delimitation, finding appropriate character sets and analytical tools are among the greatest challenges. In the lichenized fungal genus Vulpicida, six morphologically circumscribed species have been distinguished, but phenotypic characters partly overlap for three of these and intermediate forms occur. We used a combination of phylogenetic strategies to delimit the species in this genus.