Acarosporaceae

Acarospora fuscata, Maryland, USA

The Acarosporaceae are a rather isolated standing family of the Ascomycota that form its own order Acorosporales and subclass Acarosporomycetidae.

Features

The fruit bodies ( ascomata ) are recessed sitting on the thalli or in this. They are disc-shaped or perithecisch. The hymenium is not amyloid. The paraphyses are weak and hardly branched, septate, and weak to hardly anastomosing. The asci are functionally unitunicat, not amyloid and form many spores, usually over 100 ascospores per ascus. The ascospores are hyaline, small, non-septate.

Way of life

The Acarosporaceae are Flechtenbildner. Your primary photobiont are green algae of the genera Myrmecia Trentepohlia and rare.

System

The family was made ​​earlier to the Lecanorales. DNA sequence comparisons have shown an isolated position of the family, and she was placed in a separate subclass of the class Lecanoromycetes Acarosporomycetidae 2004. It is the basal group of the Lecanoromycetes and the sister group of all other Lecanoromycetes.

Eriksson (2006 ) lists the following genera for the family at:

• Acarospora
• Glypholecia
• Lithoglypha
• Pleopsidium
• Polysporina
• Sarcogyne
• Thelocarpella