Convoluted relationships in Blastenia lichen crusts

Jan Vondrák (Průhonice bei Prag): Blastenia A. Massal. (1852) is a resurrected genus within the lichen family Teloschistaceae. Its circumscription is based mainly on molecular sequence data and it is hard to distinguish it from various unrelated species - it causes a first problem for "practical lichenologists". Even more difficult is to distinguish between numerous taxa inside the genus. And finally, to set up boundaries between taxa is not always easy. Twenty-six revealed taxa on species and subspecies level are mostly well separated in ITS, Beta-tubulin and mtLSU genealogies. Such easy situation may be explained by considerable niche specialization and geographical separation of the lineages. However, particular taxa have different relationships in different gene genealogies and hybridogeneous origin of these taxa is suggested. Recent hybridization between lineages was perhaps observed only once...