Måns Svensson

Occurrence patterns of lichens on stumps in young managed forests.

The increasing demand for forest-derived bio-fuel may decrease the amount of dead wood and hence also the amount of available substrate for saproxylic ( = dead-wood dependent) organisms. Cut stumps constitute a large portion of dead wood in managed boreal forests. The lichen flora of such stumps has received little interest. Therefore, we investigated which lichens that occur on stumps in young (4–19 years), managed forests and analyzed how species richness and occurrence of individual species were related to stump and stand characteristics. We performed lichen inventories of 576 Norway spruce stumps in 48 forest stands in two study areas in Central Sweden, recording in total 77 lichen species. Of these, 14 were obligately lignicolous, while the remaining were generalists that also grow on bark, soil or rocks. We tested the effect of characteristics reflecting successional stage, microclimate, substrate patch size, and the species pool in the surrounding area on (1) total lichen species richness, (2) species richness of obligately lignicolous lichens and (3) the occurrence of four obligately lignicolous lichen species. The most important variables were stump age, with more species on old stumps, and study area, with similar total species richness but differences in occupancy for individual species. Responses for total lichen species richness and species richness of obligately lignicolous lichens were overall similar, indicating similar ecological requirements of these two groups. Our results indicate that species richness measurements serve as poor proxies for the responses of individual, obligately lignicolous lichen species.

New records, range extensions and nomenclatural innovations for lichens and lichenicolous fungi from Alaska, USA

Abstract: Dillman, K. L., Ahti, T., Björk, C. R., Clerc, P., Ekman, S., Goward, T., Hafellner, J., Pérez- Ortega, S., Printzen, C., Savić, S., Schultz, M., Svensson, M., Thor, G., Tønsberg, T., Vitikainen, O., Westberg, M. & Spribille, T. 2012. New records, range extensions and nomenclatural innovations for lichens and lichenicolous fungi from Alaska, U.S.A. — Herzogia 25: 177–210. Surveys of lichens and lichenicolous fungi have been taking place in the U.S. state of Alaska for more than 160 years, but until now assessing the full extent of their diversity has been hampered by the lack of a comprehensive and synonymized baseline inventory. In this paper we will begin to redress this by resolving outstanding nomenclatural issues and providing voucher data for a forthcoming catalog of Alaskan lichens, specifically: 1) synonymization and/or resolution of status of species previously reported from Alaska, with emphasis on Alaskan types; 2) species new to the Alaska lichen biota; and 3) biogeographically significant new records from within Alaska. We report 91 species new to the flora of Alaska, including 65 lichens, three saprophytic calicioid fungi and 23 lichenicolous fungi. Of these, we report thirteen species, Biatora sphaeroidiza, Biatorella conspurcans, Chaenothecopsis arthoniae, Collemopsidium foveolatum, Dactylospora frigida, Halospora discrepans, Lecanora bryopsora, Opegrapha geographicola, Peltigera lyngei, Petractis clausa, Protoblastenia cyclospora, Thelocarpon impressellum and Usnea cylindrica as new to North America. In addition, Arthonia pruinata and Flavocetraria minuscula are new to Canada and Adelococcus alpestris new to the United States. We further place the following five names into synonymy: Lecania disceptans (Nyl.) Lynge [= Halecania alpivaga (Th.Fr.) M.Mayrhofer], Lecidea pallidella Nyl. [= Lecania subfuscula (Nyl.) S.Ekman], Lempholemma triptodes (Nyl.) Zahlbr. (= Leciophysma finmarkicum Th.Fr.), Polyblastia obtenta (Nyl.) Lynge [= Sporodictyon terrestre (Th.Fr.) S.Savić & Tibell], and Verrucaria pernigrata Nyl. [= Protothelenella sphinctrinoides (Nyl.) H.Mayrhofer & Poelt]. We propose restoring the long overlooked taxon Polyblastia exalbida (Nyl.) Zahlbr., currently known only from Alaska, to the North American lichen checklist. Finally, we propose the new combination Puttea caesia (Fr.) M.Svensson & T.Sprib. to replace Lecidea symmictella Nyl., which becomes a synonym.

Brianaria (Psoraceae), a new genus to accommodate the Micarea sylvicola group

The new genus Brianaria S. Ekman & M. Svensson is introduced for the Micarea sylvicola group, with the new combinations Brianaria bauschiana (Korb.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson, B . lutulata (Nyl.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson, B. sylvicola (Flot. ex Korb.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson and B . tuberculata (Sommerf.) S. Ekman & M. Svensson. The new genus is characterized by a chlorococcoid, non-micareoid photobiont, small, convex apothecia without an excipulum, an ascus of the ‘ Psora -type’, 0–1-septate ascospores, dimorphic paraphyses, and immersed pycnidia containing bacilliform conidia. Brianaria is shown to form a monophyletic group in the Psoraceae , where it is probably the sister group to Psora and Protoblastenia .

Gyalidea fruticola, a new corticolous lichen from Europe

Abstract: The diminutive species Gyalidea fruticola is described from Central Sweden and northernItaly. It is typically found on decaying bark, on semi-shaded Lonicera spp. in deciduous, mixeddeciduous/coniferous or coniferous forests. The species is characterized by its small and paleapothecia, its submuriform ascospores and its habitat preference. Key words: Italy, Lonicera , new species, Solorinellaceae , Sweden Introduction The genus Gyalidea ( Solorinellaceae ) includessmall and long overlooked species. Severalspecies are known only from the typematerial or very limited collections (e.g.Veˇzda & Poelt 1991; Veˇzda 1996) and theecology of most species is poorly known.Nine species are known from Fennoscandia(Sweden, Norway, Finland) and of these,seven are found in Sweden (Santesson et al. 2004). In 2006 a further Gyalidea specieswas collected in Sweden and Italy and isdescribed here for the first time. Material and Methods All light microscopy measurements used for statisticalcalculations were made on material mounted in waterusing an oil-immersion lens, with a precision of 1 m.Spore measurements are given as (the minimum valuerecorded–) (mean value c.standard deviation)–(meanvalue+standard deviation) (–the maximum value re-corded). The calculated values are rounded to the near-est whole number. The mean value (x¯), the standarddeviation (SD), and the total sample size (

Gyalidea fuscoclavata (Solorellinaceae), a new corticolous lichen from south-western Argentina

Abstract Gyalidea fuscoclavata is described from one locality in the forest-steppe ecotone in south-western Argentina, where it grows on bark of the shrub Berberis microphylla. The new species is characterized by small (0.1–0.25 mm) black apothecia, 3-septate ascospores, apically thickened paraphyses with brown pigmented caps and KI+ blue hymenium.