Exploring the relationships between ecology and species traits in cyanolichens: A case study on Italy

This work provides an overview of the ecology of all bipartite cyanolichens of Italy, exploring the relationships between ecological factors and species traits. A matrix of 205 species and several ecological descriptors was subjected to multivariate analyses (classification and ordination). Six groups of species with similar ecology were delimited, arranged along a gradient of decreasing aridity and light intensity, from extreme dry habitats on sunny calcareous rocks to very humid and shaded habitats on tree bark. The relationships between ecological species groups and traits were assessed by Principal Component Analysis, carried out on a matrix of ecological species groups and percent occurrences of 11 morpho-biological traits in each group. Along the gradient from arid to humid environments, and from more primeval substrata (rocks, mineral soils) to more recent ones (organic soils, tree bark), morphologically simpler, sexually reproducing cyanolichens are gradually replaced by more complex, often asexual species, which suggests that the current ecology of cyanolichens may retain a phylogenetic signal, indicative of the evolutionary footprint in species adaptation processes.