''Biatora kalbii'' is a species of

squamulose lichen A squamulose lichen is a lichen that is composed of small, often overlapping "scales" called . If they are raised from the substrate and appear leafy, the lichen may appear to be a foliose lichen, but the underside does not have a "skin" (cortex), ...

in the family

Ramalinaceae The Ramalinaceae are a family of lichen-forming fungi in the order Lecanorales. First proposed by Carl Adolph Agardh in 1821, the family now comprises 63 genera and about 750 species. Ramalinaceae lichens exhibit diverse growth forms, includin ...

. It has a

pantropical A pantropical ("all tropics") distribution is one which covers tropical regions of both the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Examples of species include caecilians, modern sirenians and the plant genera ''Acacia'' and ''Bacopa''. ''Neotropical' ...

distribution.

Taxonomy

The species was first

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

by Brazilian lichenologist Lois Brako in her 1991

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

on the genus ''

Biatora ''Biatora'' is a genus of lichens in the family Ramalinaceae. Originally circumscribed in 1817,Fries EM, Sandberg A. (1817). ''Lichenum dianome nova''. Lund. the genus consists of crustose and squamulose lichens with green algal photobionts, bi ...

''. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

was collected in 1980 from

Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul ( ) is one of Federative units of Brazil, Brazil's 27 federal units, located in the southern part of the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West Region, bordering five Brazilian states: Mato Grosso (to the north), Goiás and ...

Klaus Kalb Klaus Kalb (born 1942) is a German lichenologist and an authority on tropical lichens. Born in Nuremberg, he studied at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg before pursuing a career that significantly advanced the field of lichenology, parti ...

, for whom the species in named.

Sergey Kondratyuk Sergey Yakovlevich Kondratyuk () (born 17 May 1959) is a Ukrainian botanist specialising in lichenology. His research deals with the taxonomy, floristics, ecology and geography of lichens and lichenicolous fungi. He has worked at the for mo ...

transferred the species from genus '' Phyllopsora'' to ''

'' in 2019.

Description

The

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 ...

of ''Biatora kalbii'' is made of small round to elongated, convex green squamules (scales) measuring 0.1–0.3 mm in diameter. Some scales are arranged so that they are discrete, while others may overlap; all are attached closely to the

substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (aquatic environment), the earthy material that exi ...

Isidia An isidium (plural: isidia) is a tiny, wart- or finger-like outgrowth on the thallus surface of certain lichen species. It is one of two principal types of vegetative reproduction, vegetative reproductive structures in lichens, the other being ...

are spherical; they lengthen by budding. The

prothallus A prothallus, or prothallium, (from Latin ''pro'' = forwards and Greek ''θαλλος'' (''thallos'') = twig) is usually the gametophyte stage in the life of a fern or other pteridophyte. Occasionally the term is also used to describe the young ...

is pale and thin.

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 ...

(sexual reproductive structures) are common in ''Biatora kalbii''; they are circular with a pale to dark brown disc that is either flat or slightly convex, and a margin around the disc. The

ascospore In fungi, an ascospore is the sexual spore formed inside an ascus—the sac-like cell that defines the division Ascomycota, the largest and most diverse Division (botany), division of fungi. After two parental cell nucleus, nuclei fuse, the ascu ...

s are

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 ...

to short-fusiform (tapering on both ends).

Pycnidia A pycnidium (plural pycnidia) is an asexual fruiting body produced by mitosporic fungi, for instance in the order Sphaeropsidales ( Deuteromycota, Coelomycetes) or order Pleosporales (Ascomycota, Dothideomycetes). It is often spherical or inve ...

are common on the lichen surface; they appear tan-coloured spots with orange to brown

ostiole An ''ostiole'' is a small hole or opening through which algae or fungi release their mature spores. The word is a diminutive of wikt:ostium, "ostium", "opening". The term is also used in higher plants, for example to denote the opening of the ...

s immersed in the thallus. The pycnidia produce straight, rod-shaped

conidia A conidium ( ; : conidia), sometimes termed an asexual chlamydospore or chlamydoconidium (: chlamydoconidia), is an asexual, non- motile spore of a fungus. The word ''conidium'' comes from the Ancient Greek word for dust, ('). They are also ...

that measure 9 by 1

μm The micrometre (Commonwealth English as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American English), also commonly known by the non-SI term micron, is a unit of length in the International System ...

. The lichen does not produce any secondary chemicals that could be detected with standard spot tests.

Distribution

''Biatora kalbii'' has a

distribution, with most records recorded from altitudes between . Brako's original description includes records from the United States,

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

, Brazil, Kenya, and Tanzania.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q107522390 kalbii Lichen species Lichens described in 1991 Lichens of Africa Lichens of the Caribbean Lichens of the United States Lichens of Brazil Fungi without expected TNC conservation status