The Arthoniaceae are one of the larger families of lichens, with over 800 species, c. 140 of which are non-lichenized lichenicolous fungi (Lücking & al. 2016, Diederich & al. 2018). Progress in molecular systematics (see e.g. Frisch & Thor 2014, Frisch et al. 2015, Van den Broek et al. 2018, Thiyagaraja & al. 2020) has considerably modified our understanding of families in the Arthoniales, and several genera were recently segregated from Arthonia, such as Bryostigma, Coniocarpon, Diarthonis, Felipes, Inoderma, Naevia, Pachnolepia, Synarthonia and Sparria, some of which now do not belong to the Arthoniaceae. For example, Sparria has been transferred to the Opegraphaceae (Ertz & Tehler 2011, Frisch et al. 2014). Bryostigma belongs to an unresolved clade within the Arthoniales (Lücking et al. 2016), and Felipes is likely to belong into the Chrysotrichaceae (Cannon & al. 2020). Furthermore, some species of Opegrapha were transferred into Arthonia by Ertz & al. (2009).
Frisch et al. (2014, 2015) and Thiyagaraja et al. (2020) found that Bryostigma and several lichenicolous species occupied a separate clade to Arthonia and its relatives. Kondratyuk et al. (2020) included twelve new combinations into Bryostigma for these lichenicolous species, but, according to Cannon & al. (2020), they added minimally to understanding of the clade and introduced several errors. Many further lichenicolous species of Arthonia probably belong in this broad clade, but pending further studies they are still maintained here into Arthonia.
The present key includes all species traditionally considered as belonging to the Arthoniaceae, including non-lichenized species, which are known to occur in Italy (see Nimis 2016, von Brackel 2016), plus several taxa which were never reported from Italy, but are known from neighbouring countries, for a total of 115 species.

References

Cannon P., Ertz D., Frisch A., Aptroot A., Chambers S., Coppins B. Sanderson N., Simkin J., Wolseley P. 2020. Revisions of British and Irish Lichens. Vol. 1 Arthoniales: Arthoniaceae. The British Lichen Society. ISSN 2634-7768. 48 pp.
Diederich P., Lawrey J.D., Ertz D. 2018. The 2018 classification and checklist of lichenicolous fungi, with 2000 non-lichenized, obligately lichenicolous taxa. Bryologist, 121: 340-425.
Ertz D., Tehler A. 2011. The phylogeny of Arthoniales (Pezizomycotina) inferred from nucLSU and RPB2 sequences. Fungal Diversity, 49, 1: 47-71.
Ertz D., Miadlikowska J., Lutzoni F., Dessein S., Raspe O., Vigneron N., Hofstetter V., Diederich P. 2009. Towards a new classification of the Arthoniales (Ascomycota) based on a three-gene phylogeny focusing on the genus Opegrapha. Mycological Research, 113: 141–152.
Frisch A., Thor G., Ertz D., Grube M. 2014. The Arthonialean challenge: Restructuring Arthoniaceae. Taxon, 63, 4: 727-744.
Frisch A., Ohmura Y., Ertz D., Thor G. 2015. Inoderma and related genera in Arthoniaceae with elevated pruinose pycnidia or sporodochia. Lichenologist, 47, 4: 233-256.
Kondratyuk S.Y., Upreti D.K., Mishra G.K., Nayaka S., Ingle K.K., Orlov O.O., Kondratiuk A.S., Lőkös L., Farkas E., Woo J.-J., Hur J.-S. 2020. New and noteworthy lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi 10. Acta Botanica Hungarica 62: 69-108.
Nimis P.L. 2016. The lichens of Italy. A second annotated catalogue. EUT, Trieste, 740 pp.
Van den Broeck D., Frisch A., Razafindrahaja T., van der Vijver B. & Ertz D. 2018. Phylogenetic position of Synarthonia (lichenized Ascomycota, Arthoniaceae), with the description of six new species. Plant Ecology and Evolution, 151: 327–351.
von Brackel W. 2016. Preliminary checklist of the lichenicolous fungi of Italy. Not. Soc. Lich. Ital., 29: 95-146.

Last modified: March, 31, 2024

Project Dryades, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste - CC BY-SA 4.0