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Abstract
Specimens of Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca from Mount Wuling can be divided into two distinct groups based on obvious differences in morphological characters. Here we investigated 26 specimens of R. chrysoleuca from Mount Wuling, 10 specimens of this species from other areas and seven specimens of other Rhizoplaca species by analyzing morphology, chemistry and genetics. Nine chemotypes were detected among the specimens of R. chrysoleuca from Mount Wuling, and five of them were reported for the first time. Based on the ITS phylogenetic analysis, the chemotypes and the insertion distribution patterns in SSU rDNA, the samples of R. chrysoleuca from Mount Wuling were grouped in two distinct clades corresponding to two phenotypic groups and no gene flow was detected between these two groups. Our results establish all individuals of Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca are conspecific although some populations have been isolated on Mount Wuling, indicating that they are in the process of speciation. Our study also reveals that the relationships between genotypes and chemotypes are complicated and should be avoided, and we instead recommend using single individuals or few individuals from the same site to represent the population or whole species in systematics study. The results also indicate that Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca might provide a good model for studying the speciation of saxicolous lichenized fungi.
We thank Mr Hai-ying Wang, Mr Jun Yang and Miss Xin-Li Wei for help with the field collections. The authors thank Dr J. Elix (Chemistry Department, Australian National University) for reviewing the manuscript. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This work was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 30230020, 30470007) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant kscxz-sw-101C).
