Discovered a new species of the lichenised fungus genus Lichina on the coast of the Canary Islands
"The coastal rocks of our planet’s oceans are a paradigm of the diversity of macroalgae, the main producers of oxygen in the oceans and a source of food for other species, which have a large biomass despite living in adverse conditions such as strong waves and extreme salinity", emphasises Garrido, from the Department of Botany and Geology at the UV. Living among them are fungi that have lichenised, that is to say, they have associated in a mutualistic way with green microalgae and/or cyanobacteria, in order to survive and diversify, like the new species found. "The genus of lichenised fungi Lichina, which forms tiny, black and branched lichens, in association with cyanobacteria, is a clear example", explains the researcher.
The study has discovered that Lichina is amphitropical and probably consists of only four species: three in the northern hemisphere, among which is Lichina canariensis, only present in the Canary Islands, and only one in the south. The research team also indicates that the current distribution of Lichina species obeys transoceanic migrations that, with great probability, occurred with the current continental configuration of the planet.
The work, one of the first phylogeographic studies focused on lichens that grow in the coastal area, analyses the evolution on a geographical and temporal scale of the species of this genus by means of samples collected in both hemispheres, from Scandinavia, the Atlantic coasts of Great Britain, France, the Iberian Peninsula, the Azores and the Canary Islands, to finish with Tasmania, New Zealand and Chile.
The evolutionary origin of Lichina canariensis probably lies in individuals of the sister species Lichina pygmaea that migrated from the European or North African Atlantic coasts, and this migration was possibly facilitated by migratory birds. In addition, another of the questions to be resolved is which of the four species conquered Antarctica and when it did so.
Isaac Garrido, explains that obtaining samples from so many remote populations in the two hemispheres "has been a long and laborious process of more than a decade".
The team that accompanied Garrido is formed by Asunción de los Ríos, Jano Núñez Zapata and Sergio Pérez Ortega (CSIC); Rüdiger Ortiz Álvarez (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, FECYT) and Matthias Schultz (University of Hamburg).
This research has received the support of the Youth Employment Operative Program and the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) of the Community of Madrid and the Ministry of Science and Innovation. It has also had the support of the University of Valencia for the open access publication.
Article : Garrido-Benavent et al. ’Ocean crossers: A tale of disjunctions and speciation in the dwarf-fruticose Lichina (lichenized Ascomycota)’. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Volume 185, August 2023.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107829
