Intrathalline diversity of lichen-inhabiting fungi assessed by metabarcoding analysis

Lichen-inhabiting fungi are a large and diversified, but still relatively unknown, ecological group. They can live on host thalli symptomatically, showing characteristic phenotypes and different degrees of specificity (lichenicolous fungi), or asymptomatically (endolichenic fungi), detectable only through culture and molecular techniques. Here we aim at studying the whole diversity of lichen-associated fungi using metabarcoding analysis of the internal transcribed-spacer region 2, as parts of the fungal standard barcode. We analyzed thalli with and without symptoms of fungal infection, collected from Alpine lichen communities on the Koralpe Massif (Austria).