Lecanoropsis

Lecanoropsis
	Lecanoropsis saligna
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Ascomycota
Class:	Lecanoromycetes
Order:	Lecanorales
Family:	Lecanoraceae
Genus:	Lecanoropsis; M.Choisy ex Ivanovich (2025)
Type species
	Lecanoropsis saligna; (Schrad.) Ivanovich & Printzen (2025)
Species
	See text

Lecanoropsis is a genus of crustose lichens in the family Lecanoraceae.^[1] The name was originally introduced by Maurice Choisy in 1949,^[2] but his generic circumscription did not designate a type species and the name is therefore treated as invalidly published.^[3] A later typification by Josef Hafellner fixed the type as Lecanoropsis saligna.^[3]

Quick facts Scientific classification, Type species ...

In a 2025 revision, Ivanovich and co-authors re-examined the position of the Lecanora saligna group within Lecanora in the loose sense, a large assemblage of crustose lichens comprising around 1,000 recognised species and traditionally divided into several morphology-based groups. They focused on 23 species assigned to the L. saligna group, which are mainly corticolous (bark-dwelling) or lignicolous (wood-dwelling) and usually contain isousnic acid, usnic acid, or both as major secondary metabolites. Their study combined detailed morphological work with a molecular analysis based on seven DNA loci, including four newly developed mitochondrial primer pairs, and recovered well-supported species boundaries within the group. Compared with earlier analyses, the expanded dataset confirmed the monophyly of a "core" saligna clade; species in this clade were formally segregated into Lecanoropsis, thereby applying Choisy's generic name to a molecularly defined lineage. The revision also described six species as new to science.^[4]

One of the newly described species, Lecanoropsis prolificans, has been the subject of a popular account from Great Basin National Park, which used it as an example of how BioBlitz surveys and later laboratory work can lead to the discovery of new lichens. That article reported that the type locality of L. prolificans is near Snake Creek Campground in Great Basin National Park, based on material collected during a 2017 lichen BioBlitz, and noted that the species is also known from Arizona, California (including Yosemite National Park), and Utah, as well as south-western Canada, the Alps, Finnish Lapland, the Russian Caucasus and northern Iran.^[5]

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Lecanoropsis

Species

References

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