The Coniocybaceae are the sole

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

-forming

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

in the Coniocybales, which itself is the only

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

in the class Coniocybomycetes.

Taxonomy

The family was circumscribed by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach in 1837. Both the order and the class were proposed by Maria Prieto and Mats Wedin in 2013 after

molecular phylogenetics Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

analysis of various calicioid lichens showed that the Coniocybaceae represented an early diverging lineage in the inoperculate

ascomycete Ascomycota is a phylum of the kingdom Fungi that, together with the Basidiomycota, forms the subkingdom Dikarya. Its members are commonly known as the sac fungi or ascomycetes. It is the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 64,000 species. The def ...

Description

Coniocybomycetes lichens form symbiotic relationships with various types of

green alga The green algae (: green alga) are a group of chlorophyll-containing autotrophic eukaryotes consisting of the phylum Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister group that contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ( ...

e, including '' Dictyochloropsis'', '' Stichococcus'', '' Trentepohlia'', and members of the group. The most distinctive feature of these lichens is their stalked reproductive structures called

apothecia An ascocarp, or ascoma (: ascomata), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. As ...

. These structures have a spherical to cone-shaped head () and contain a powdery mass of spores called a , which can range from brown to pale in colour. The apothecia's outer protective layer () varies in its development and appears as an extension of the stalk tissue. The fungi reproduce through spores that develop in specialised cells called asci. These asci are cylindrical,

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that can be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional Scaling (geometry), scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a Surface (mathemat ...

al, or irregularly shaped and break down early in development. They can form either individually or in chains from specialised fungal threads (ascogenous

hypha A hypha (; ) is a long, branching, filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacterium. In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium. Structure A hypha consists of one o ...

e), sometimes with hook-like structures called . The spores themselves are typically and round or elliptical, though some rare species produce cylindrical spores with 1–5 cross-walls (

septa SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly four million people througho ...

). The spore surface can be smooth or decorated with wart-like projections or cracks, and their colour ranges from pale to brown. Secondary reproductive structures called pycnidia have only been conclusively observed in laboratory cultures of some ''Chaenotheca'' species, appearing as simple, ''Asterophoma''-like structures. Simple thread-like reproductive forms (hyphomycetous anamorphs) have been documented both in laboratory cultures and in natural settings. The order is characterised by the presence of specific chemical compounds, including derivatives of pulvinic and vulpinic acids that appear as a frosting-like coating () or within the lichen body (

thallus Thallus (: thalli), from Latinized Greek (), meaning "a green shoot" or "twig", is the vegetative tissue of some organisms in diverse groups such as algae, fungi, some liverworts, lichens, and the Myxogastria. A thallus usually names the entir ...

). Some species also contain other compounds such as atranorin, baeomycesic acid, squamatic acid, and in one species, pseudoplacodiolic acid. While genetic studies suggest a relationship with the order

Lichinomycetes Lichinales is the sole order (biology), order of ascomycete fungi in the class Lichinomycetes. It contains three family (biology), families: Gloeoheppiaceae (3 genus, genera), Lichinaceae (43 genera), and Peltulaceae (1 genus). Most species are l ...

, there are no known shared physical characteristics (morphological synapomorphies) between these groups.

Genera

*'' Chaenotheca'' – 28 spp. *'' Chaenotricha'' – 2 spp. *'' Coniocybe'' – 4 spp. *'' Sclerophora'' – 4 spp.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5161091 Coniocybaceae Ascomycota families Lichen families Taxa named by Ludwig Reichenbach Taxa described in 1837