Niche shifts in lichens: are they real or the result of cryptic speciation? A case study in the boreal lichen Cladonia botrytes
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | In the face of climate change in the next decades, considerable research effort is being invested in understanding the ecological behaviour of lichens in different parts of their range. With lichens, little work has been directed to studying niche shifts, and currently ecological variability is difficult to parse from unknown patterns of cryptic speciation, widespread in fungi. Our study focuses on the genetic structure of European populations of red-listed C. botrytes, which is extremely rare in Western Carpathians nowadays. It is a boreal species thought to be obligately associated with dead wood in forests, especially in central Europe and southern Scandinavia. However, in the northern parts of its range in Scandinavia it can also occur on other substrates, such as soil. We ask whether substrate switches in C. botrytes are bona fide niche shifts or the manifestation of hidden genetic differences. We use samples from Scandinavia and Central Europe, and data from the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS1-5.8s-ITS2) region to study genetic variability in relation to substrate switches. Possible cryptic specialisation in different habitats is discussed. In the face of climate change in the next decades, considerable research effort is being invested in understanding the ecological behaviour of lichens in different parts of their range. With lichens, little work has been directed to studying niche shifts, and currently ecological variability is difficult to parse from unknown patterns of cryptic speciation, widespread in fungi. Our study focuses on the genetic structure of European populations of red-listed C. botrytes, which is extremely rare in Western Carpathians nowadays. It is a boreal species thought to be obligately associated with dead wood in forests, especially in central Europe and southern Scandinavia. However, in the northern parts of its range in Scandinavia it can also occur on other substrates, such as soil. We ask whether substrate switches in C. botrytes are bona fide niche shifts or the manifestation of hidden genetic differences. We use samples from Scandinavia and Central Europe, and data from the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS1-5.8s-ITS2) region to study genetic variability in relation to substrate switches. Possible cryptic specialisation in different habitats is discussed. |
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