Astrothelium megeustomurale is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling) lichen in the family Trypetheliaceae. Found in Brazil, it was formally described as a new species in 2017 by Marcela Eugenia da Silva Cáceres and André Aptroot. The type specimen was collected by the authors along a trail near a field station in the Adolfo Ducke Forest Reserve (Manaus); here it was found growing on tree bark in old-growth rainforest. The lichen has a dull olive-greenish thallus lacking a prothallus, with spherical to pear-shaped ascomata that are either immersed in or on top of the thallus surface, typically arranged in groups of 5 to 15. The pseudostromata (a stroma in which fungal cells and remnants of host tissue are mixed) contain lichexanthone, a secondary chemical. The ascospores number four per ascus, are muriform (divided in regular chambers), and measure 95–120 by 30–33 μm. The species epithet refers to the large ascospores (meg-), the resemblance to A. eustomum (-eusto-), and the muriform ascospores (-murale).[1]
| Astrothelium megeustomurale | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Dothideomycetes |
| Order: | Trypetheliales |
| Family: | Trypetheliaceae |
| Genus: | Astrothelium |
| Species: | A. megeustomurale
|
| Binomial name | |
| Astrothelium megeustomurale M.Cáceres & Aptroot (2017)
| |
References
edit- ^ da Silva Cáceres, Marcela Eugenia; Aptroot, André (2017). "Lichens from the Brazilian Amazon, with special reference to the genus Astrothelium". The Bryologist. 120 (2): 166–182. doi:10.1639/0007-2745-120.2.166. S2CID 89775760.
 | This Dothideomycetes-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |