Bactrospora

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Bactrospora
Bactrospora brevispora - Flickr - pellaea.jpg
Bactrospora brevispora
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Ascomycota
Class: Arthoniomycetes
Order: Arthoniales
Genus: Bactrospora
A.Massal. (1852)
Type species
Bactrospora dryina
(Ach.) A.Massal. (1852)
Synonyms [1]

Bactrospora is a genus of lichen-forming fungi of uncertain familial placement in the order Arthoniales. These lichens grow as thin crusts on tree bark in shaded, humid environments and are distinguished by their unusually long, needle-like spores that often break apart into smaller pieces. The genus includes 24 species found worldwide, particularly in tropical and temperate forests where they help form part of the diverse bark-dwelling lichen community.

Contents

Taxonomy

The genus was circumscribed by the Italian paleobotanist and lichenologist Abramo Bartolommeo Massalongo in 1852. Massalongo distinguished Bactrospora primarily by its distinctive spore characteristics: rod-shaped spores that divide into two-celled, elliptical segments—combined with polysporous asci containing 18–20 spores. He established B. dryina as the type species based on material collected from Germany. [2]

Description

Bactrospora forms a thin, crust-like thallus that either sits on the bark surface or sinks slightly into it. The crust is usually continuous and even, though older colonies may crack into an irregular mosaic, and its surface can appear scurfy or powdery. Because a true cortex —the protective outer skin found in many lichens—is missing, the fungal layer merges directly with the algal partner. The photobiont is the orange-tinged green alga Trentepohlia , whose cells become visible and stain the thallus orange when the surface is gently scratched. A prothallus (an outer fringe of pure fungal tissue) is poorly developed and often escapes notice. No characteristic lichen products have been detected with thin-layer chromatography. [3]

The fruit bodies of Bactrospora are tiny, black to black-brown discs (apothecia) that sit on the thallus without a rim of surrounding tissue (a thalline margin ). Their own wall, the exciple , stays conspicuous; it is dark red-brown at the edge but becomes paler further in, and a drop of potassium hydroxide solution (KOH) turns this pigment an olive-black. Internally, the clear (hyaline) hymenium contains stout, sparsely branched paraphysoids whose tips interlink to form a cap ( epithecium ) ranging from pale to dark red-brown. Each ascus follows the Opegrapha -type fissitunicate pattern: its wall splits apart when the spores are released, and an iodine staining may reveal a faint blue dome over the tiny ocular chamber at the apex. [3]

Ascospores are elongated, thin and needle-like, divided by dozens of internal walls. Mature spores frequently break up into smaller spherical or short-cylindrical part-spores, so older asci often appear to contain many more than the original eight. Asexual reproduction occurs in flask-shaped pycnidia embedded in the thallus; these produce colourless, rod-shaped conidia that escape through a dark-brown pore whose pigment also turns green-black in KOH. Bactrospora is usually corticolous, colonising the bark of trees in shaded, humid habitats, and can be told apart from related genera such as Lecanactis and Cresponea by its extremely multiseptate, fragmentation-prone spores. [3]

Species

As of June 2025, Species Fungorum (in the Catalogue of Life) accepts 24 species of Bactrospora. [4]

References

  1. ↑ "Synonymy: Bactrospora A. Massal., Ric. auton. lich. crost. (Verona): 133 (1852)". Species Fungorum . Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 Massalongo, A.B. (1852). Ricerche sull'autonomia dei licheni crostosi [Research on the autonomy of crustose lichens] (in Latin). Verona, Italy: Dalla tipografia di A. Frizierio. p. 133.
  3. 1 2 3 Cannon, P.; Aptroot, A.; Coppins, B.; Ertz, D.; Sanderson, N.; Simkin, J.; Wolseley, P. (2023). Arthoniales: Roccellaceae [revision 1], including the genera Cresponea, Dendrographa, Dirina, Enterographa, Gyrographa, Lecanactis, Ocellomma, Pseudoschismatomma, Psoronactis, Roccella, Schismatomma and Syncesia (PDF). Revisions of British and Irish Lichens. Vol. 32. p. 8. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  4. ↑ "Bactrospora". Catalogue of Life . Species 2000: Leiden, the Netherlands. Retrieved 16 June 2025.
  5. ↑ Sobreira, P.N.B.; Aptroot, A.; Cáceres, M.E.S. (2015). "A world key to species of the genus Bactrospora (Roccellaceae) with a new species from Brazil". The Lichenologist. 47 (2): 131–136. doi:10.1017/S0024282914000607.
  6. ↑ Harris, R.C. (1990). Some Florida lichens. New York: New York Botanical Gardens. p. 39.
  7. ↑ Harris, R.C. (2011). "Studies in lichens and lichenicolous fungi - no 15: miscellaneous notes on species from eastern North America". Opuscula Philolichenum. 9: 45–75. doi:10.5962/p.382029.
  8. ↑ Ponzetti, J.; McCune, B. (2006). "A new species of Bactrospora from northwestern North America". The Bryologist. 109 (1): 85–88. doi:10.1639/0007-2745(2006)109[0085:ANSOBF]2.0.CO;2.
  9. ↑ Almquist, S. (1869). Om de skandinaviska arterna af lafslägtena, Schismatomma, Opegrapha och Bactrospora[On the Scandinavian species of the lichen genera, Schismatomma, Opegrapha, and Bactrospora]. p. 25.
  10. ↑ Berger, F.; Aptroot, A. (2008). "Bactrospora flavopruinosa, a new lichen species from Bermuda". The Lichenologist. 40 (6): 543–547. doi:10.1017/S0024282908008104.
  11. 1 2 3 Kantvilas, G. (2004). "A contribution to the Roccellaceae in Tasmania: new species and notes on Lecanactis and allied genera". Symbolae Botanicae Upsalienses. 34 (1): 183–203.
  12. ↑ Torrente, P.; Egea, J.M. (1989). La Familia Opegraphaceae en el Area Mediterránea de la Península Ibérica y Norte de Africa[The Family Opegraphaceae in the Mediterranean Area of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa]. Bibliotheca Lichenologica. Vol. 32. Berlin/Stuttgart: J. Cramer. pp. 179–185. ISBN   978-3-443-58011-7.
  13. ↑ Aptroot, A.; Saipunkaew, W.; Sipman, H.J.M.; Sparrius, L.B.; Wolseley, P.A. (2007). "New lichens from Thailand, mainly microlichens from Chiang Mai". Fungal Diversity. 24: 75–134.
  14. ↑ Lendemer, J.C. (2004). "Changes and additions to the checklist of North American Lichens. - I". Mycotaxon. 89 (2): 255–258.
  15. ↑ Herrera-Campos, M.A.; Barcenas-Peña, A.; Miranda-González, R.; Altamirano Mejía, M.; Bautista González, J.A.; Martínez Colín, P.; Sánchez Téllez, N.; Lücking, R. (2019). "New lichenized Arthoniales and Ostropales from Mexican seasonally dry tropical forest". The Bryologist. 122 (1): 62–83. doi:10.1639/0007-2745-122.1.062.
  16. 1 2 Jagadeesh Ram, T.A.M. (2014). "New species and new records in Roccellaceae (Arthoniales) from the Andaman Islands, India". Biotaxa. 177 (3): 155–162. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.177.3.3.
  17. ↑ Egea, J.M.; Torrente, P. (1995). "Melampilidium metabolum belongs in Bactrospora". Mycotaxon. 53: 57–61.
  18. ↑ Van den Boom, P.P.G.; Sipman, H.J.M.; Divakar, P.K.; Ertz, D. (2018). "New or interesting records of lichens and lichenicolous fungi from Suriname, with descriptions of eight new species". Ascomycete.org. 10 (6): 244–258.
  19. 1 2 Sparrius, L.B.; Saipunkaew, W.; Wolseley, P.A.; Aptroot, A. (2006). "New species of Bactrospora, Enterographa, Graphidastra and Lecanographa from Northern Thailand and Vietnam". The Lichenologist. 38 (1): 27–36. doi:10.1017/S0024282905005414.
  20. ↑ Llop, E.; van den Boom, P.P.G. (2009). "Notes on the lichen genus Bacidia s. l. (lichenized Ascomycota) in Cape Verde Islands and new lichen records for the archipelago". Mycotaxon. 109: 171–179. doi: 10.5248/109.171 .
  21. ↑ Guzmán-Guillermo, J.; Sorcia-Navarrete, P.L.; Llarena-Hernández, R.C.; Cárdenas-Mendoza, K.D.R. (2021). "Bactrospora totonacae (Arthoniales, Ascomycota), a new species from Veracruz, Mexico". Acta Botanica Mexicana. 128 (e1900): 1–6. doi: 10.21829/abm128.2021.1900 .
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