''Calopadia editiae'' is a species of

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 ...

in the family

Pilocarpaceae The Pilocarpaceae are a family of crustose lichens in the order Lecanorales. The species of this family have a cosmopolitan distribution and have been found in a variety of climatic regions. Pilocarpaceae was circumscribed by Alexander Zahlbruck ...

. It is found in

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

, with a distribution that extends to

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

and the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...

. It can be found on

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

bark Bark may refer to: Common meanings * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Arts and entertainment * ''Bark'' (Jefferson Airplane album), ...

and is characterised by its pale grey to brownish grey colour, rounded

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 ...

and distinctive . Described as new to science in 2011, the species was named in honour of Hungarian lichenologist Edit Farkas.

Taxonomy

The first

scientific collection A scientific collection is a collection of items that are preserved, catalogued, and managed for the purpose of scientific study. Scientific collections dealing specifically with organisms plants, fungi, animals, insects and their remains, may al ...

s of ''Calopadia editiae'' were made by Hungarian lichenologist Edit Farkas in 1989. She discovered the lichen in Tanzania, specifically in the

Morogoro Region Morogoro Region (''Mkoa wa Morogoro'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. It covers an area of . and is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of Ireland. M ...

, on the south-eastern slope of Mount Kanga at an elevation between .

Antonín Vězda Antonín (Toni) Vězda (25 November 1920 – 10 November 2008) was a Czech lichenologist. After completing a university education that was postponed by World War II, Vězda taught botany at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech U ...

intended to dedicate the species to her but was unable to do so before his death in 2008. José Luis Chaves and

Robert Lücking Robert Lücking (born 1964) is a German lichenologist, known for his extensive research on foliicolous lichens (lichens that live on leaves) and his significant contributions to the taxonomy, ecology, and biodiversity of fungi and lichens. He e ...

used Vězda's original name and validly published the species in 2011.

Description

''Calopadia editiae'' is a

foliicolous Foliicolous refers to the growth habit of certain lichens, algae, fungi, liverworts, and other bryophytes that prefer to grow on the leaves of vascular plants. ''Foliicolous'' simply means 'growing upon leaves' whilst epiphyllous derives from the ...

corticolous This glossary of mycology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to mycology, the study of fungi. Terms in common with other fields, if repeated here, generally focus on their mycology-specific meaning. Related terms can be found ...

lichen, meaning that it grows on leaves or bark. 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 ...

, or vegetative body of the lichen, is continuous or dispersed into rounded, confluent patches up to 50 mm across and 20–40 μm thick. Its colour ranges from pale grey to brownish grey, and the surface is smooth and lacks a cortex. The

, or fruiting bodies, are rounded, 0.5–1 mm in diameter and 250–350 μm high, with a light brown that is initially flat but becomes convex as the apothecium matures. The disc is covered with a thick, pale yellowish to cream-coloured , which is a powdery substance found on the surface of some lichens. The ascospores are oblong to

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 ...

, , colourless, and measure 50–80 by 20–30 μm. ''Calopadia editiae'' is similar in appearance to ''

Calopadia perpallida ''Calopadia'' is a genus of foliicolous (leaf-dwelling) lichens in the family Pilocarpaceae. It was circumscribed by Czech lichenologist Antonín Vězda in 1986. Species *'' Calopadia aurantiaca'' *'' Calopadia bonitensis'' *'' Calopadia ...

'', another

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' ...

lichen species. However, ''Calopadia editiae'' can be distinguished by its shorter ascospores, which typically measure 50–80 by 20–30 μm, as opposed to the longer ascospores of ''Calopadia perpallida'' that mostly exceed 100 μm in length. '' Calopadia saxicola'' is another species with pruinose apothecia and muriform ascospores, but its asci typically contain 2 or 3 spores, and it has a whitish (rather than yellowish) pruina on its apothecia.

Habitat and distribution

''Calopadia editiae'' has a wide tropical distribution and has been found in collections from Tanzania, Costa Rica, and the

. It grows on leaves or bark and is typically found in more or less exposed microsites at low to mid elevations.

Notes

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q107539017, from2=Q16750854 Pilocarpaceae Lichen species Lichens described in 2011 Lichens of Africa Lichens of Central America Lichens of the Galápagos Islands Taxa named by Robert Lücking