Fungalpedia – Note 546, Huneckia

 

Huneckia S.Y. Kondr., Elix, Kärnefelt, A. Thell & Hur

Citation when using this data: Tibpromma et al. 2024 (in prep.) – Fungalpedia, Lichenicolous fungi

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig. 1 

Classification: Teloschistaceae, Teloschistales, Lecanoromycetidae, Lecanoromycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi.

Huneckia was established by Kondratyuk et al. (2014) with the type species Huneckia pollinii (= Blastenia pollinii and Caloplaca pollinii), and Huneckia rheinigera, (= Caloplaca rheinigera). Members of Huneckia are distributed worldwide and are associated with various hosts. The multi-gene phylogenetic analysis of nrITS, nrLSU, and mrSSU have been used to distinguish species in this genus (Bungartz et al. 2020). Huneckia is morphologically distinguished from other genera, by its crustose thallus, which is thin to areolate and ranges from whitish grey to pale brown in color. The thallus is continuous and features a cortical layer composed of ‘algal’ plectenchyma.(Kondratyuk et al. 2007); apothecia sessile, disc dark rust-brown, biatorine, sub-hymenium, smooth; eight ascospores accommodated in each ascus, polarilocular, with thick-walled at the poles, sometimes observed ‘sand-clock’ type of ascospores; proper exciple and epithecium K+ reddish violet, remaining bluish violet on standing; constituents: chrysophanol and rhein (major) and chrysophanal (minor) (Kondratyuk et al. 2014, Bungartz et al. 2020). Currently, Huneckia includes four species (H. crocina, H. pollinii, H. rheinigera and H. wrightii), and sequence data of all species are available in the NCBI Genbank database.

Type species: Huneckia pollinii (A. Massal.) S.Y. Kondr., Kärnefelt, A. Thell, Elix, J. Kim, A.S. Kondr. & Hur

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Huneckia

Figure 1 – Huneckia pollinii. a Habitus. b apothecium section. c ascospores. d conidia. Scale bars: a = 500 μm, b = 25 μm, c = 5 μm, d = 10 μm. Redrawn from Miao et al. (2017).

 

References

Bungartz, F., Søchting, U., Arup, U. 2020‒ Teloschistaceae (lichenized Ascomycota) from the Galapagos Islands: a phylogenetic revision based on morphological, anatomical, chemical, and molecular data. Plant and Fungal Systematics, 65(2), 515‒576.

Kondratyuk, S.Y, Kärnefelt, I., Thell, A., Elix, J., et al. 2014‒ A revised taxonomy for the subfamily Caloplacoideae (Teloschistaceae, Ascomycota) based on molecular phylogeny. Acta Botanica Hungarica, 56(1-2), 141‒178.

Kondratyuk, S.Y., Kärnefelt, I., Elix, J.A. Thell, A. 2007‒ New species of the genus Caloplaca in Australia. Bibl. Lichenol. 95, 341–386.

Miao, C.C., Zhao, X.X., Zhao, Z.T., Shahidin, H., et al. 2018‒ Huneckia pollinii and Flavoplaca oasis newly recorded from China. Mycotaxon, 132(4): 895‒901.

 

Entry by

Lu W, Excellence Center of Microbial Diversity and Sustainable Utilization, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; Center for Yunnan Plateau Biological Resources Protection and Utilization, College of Biological Resource and Food Engineering, Qujing Normal University, Qujing, Yunnan 655011, China

 

(Edited by Saowaluck Tibpromma, Samaneh Chaharmiri-Dokhaharani, & Achala R. Rathnayaka)

 

Published online 13 December 2024

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