New Taxonomic Arrangement of Dicranella s.l. and Aongstroemia s.l. (Dicranidae, Bryophyta)

Abstract

The recent molecular phylogenetic study of the families Aongstroemiaceae and Dicranellaceae, which resolved the genera Aongstroemia and Dicranella as polyphyletic, indicated the need for changes in their circumscription and provided new morphological evidence to support the formal description of newly recognized lineages. Following up on these results, the present study adds another molecular marker, the highly informative trnK–psbA region, to a subset of previously analyzed taxa and presents molecular data from newly analyzed austral representatives of Dicranella and collections of Dicranella-like plants from North Asia. The molecular data are linked with morphological traits, particularly the leaf shape, tuber morphology, and capsule and peristome characters. Based on this multi-proxy evidence, we propose three new families (Dicranellopsidaceae, Rhizogemmaceae, and Ruficaulaceae) and six new genera (Bryopalisotia, Calcidicranella, Dicranellopsis, Protoaongstroemia, Rhizogemma, and Ruficaulis) to accommodate the described species according to the revealed phylogenetic affinities. Additionally, we amend the circumscriptions of the families Aongstroemiaceae and Dicranellaceae, as well as the genera Aongstroemia and Dicranella. In addition to the monotypic Protoaongstroemia that contains the newly described dicranelloid plant with a 2–3-layered distal leaf portion from Pacific Russia, P. sachalinensis, Dicranella thermalis is described for a D. heteromalla-like plant from the same region. Fourteen new combinations, including one new status change, are proposed.