DOI: 10.5683/sp3/dlxdmt
title: Gowardia zebrina sp. nov., a new species in a little-known genus of arctic-alpine lichens (Parmeliaceae)

description: &lt;b&gt;Abstract&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fruticose lichen genus &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt; (Parmeliaceae) was recently segregated from Alectoria based on phylogeny, morphology, secondary chemistry, ecology and distribution. As currently circumscribed, &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt; comprises two wide-ranging species of arctic-alpine regions. Here we describe a third species, &lt;em&gt;G. zebrina &lt;/em&gt;sp. nov., apparently endemic to subalpine regions in mountainous northwestern North America. &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;zebrina&lt;/em&gt; differs from other species in the genus by its combined subpendent habit, uniformly capillary branches, predominantly isotomic branching, pale-and-dark banding of the terminal branches, and epiphytic ecology. Morphological examination of North American herbarium specimens filed under &lt;em&gt;A. nigricans&lt;/em&gt; suggests the existence of several additional undescribed species of &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt;. A brief overview of morphological diversity in these species is given, shedding new light on the question of whether &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt; should be subsumed under &lt;em&gt;Alectoria&lt;/em&gt;, as some have suggested, or is more appropriately recognized as a distinct genus.&lt;/p&gt;
description: &lt;b&gt;Methods&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Phylogenetic study was based on sequences of nuclear ribosomal ITS regions from 29 specimens, including four specimens from the genus &lt;em&gt;Alectoria&lt;/em&gt; and 24 specimens from &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;em&gt;Bryocaulon divergens&lt;/em&gt; (Ach.) Kärnefelt belongs to the Alectorioid clade &lt;em&gt;sensu&lt;/em&gt; Divakar et al. (2015) together with &lt;em&gt;Alectoria&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt; and was used as an outgroup. Seven new ITS sequences were generated for this study. The remaining sequence data were obtained from the NCBI GenBank (&lt;a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/"&gt;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/&lt;/a&gt;), including all available ITS sequences of &lt;em&gt;Gowardia&lt;/em&gt;. The ITS sequences were aligned with MUSCLE v.3.8.31 (Edgar 2004) using EMBL-EBI’s freely available web service (&lt;a href="http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/"&gt;http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/&lt;/a&gt; muscle/). Phylogenetic relationships were inferred using maximum likelihood (ML) as optimality criteria. The ML analysis was performed in RAxML v.8.1.15 (Stamatikis 2104) located at CSC – IT Center for Science (&lt;a href="http://www.csc.fi/english"&gt;http://www.csc.fi/english&lt;/a&gt;). We divided the data set into three partitions (ITS1 region, 5,8S gene, ITS2 region) and used a GTRGAMMA model because GTR is the only substitution model implemented in RAxML. Nodal support was estimated with 1000 bootstrap replicates using the rapid bootstrap algorithm.&lt;/p&gt;
description: <b>Dryad version number:</b> 3
<b>Version status:</b> submitted
<b>Dryad curation status:</b> Published
<b>Sharing link:</b> https://datadryad.org/stash/share/5amFbbeW1tgOQTT80MX8HbsibRpPT1PK-1wa4BMBusc
<b>Storage size:</b> 69810
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