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Pyrenocarpous lichens are an important component of the forest ecosystem, yet remain understudied. Following the recent field surveys of the lichen biota in Mt. Musuan, four pyrenolichen species previously unreported from the Philippines were collected, namely: Porina exocha, Pyrenula pyrenuloides, P. subsoluta, and Nigrovothelium inspersotropicum. Each species is briefly described with morphology and chemistry, distribution, ecology, notes, and illustrations. These collections underscore the need for expanded research attention to fully catalogue the lichen diversity in the Philippines. 

Abstract A first integrative survey of the genusUsneain the southern Philippines, taking into account morphological, anatomical, chemical and molecular characters, resulted in the recognition of 20 taxa, including three species new to science:Usnea angulataAch.,U. baileyi(Stirt.) Zahlbr.,U. bismolliusculaZahlbr.,U. brasiliensis(Zahlbr.) Motyka,U. confusaAsah.,U. croceorubescensStirt.,U. dasaeaStirt.,U. himalayanaC. Bab.,U. krogianaP. Clerc,U. longissimaAch.,U. nidificaTaylor,U. norsticornutaA. Gerlach & P. Clerc sp. nov. (characterized by a moderately thick cortex and by the presence of norstictic acid),U. paleograndisoraA. Gerlach & P. Clerc sp. nov. (characterized by an orange subcortical pigmentation in the medulla, with enlarging soralia and a moderately thick and shiny cortex),U. pectinataTaylor,U. pygmoidea(Asahina) Y. Ohmura,U. rubicundaStirt.,U. rubrotincta(Stirt.) Zahlbr.,U. spinulifera(Vain.) Motyka,U. subscabrosaMotyka andU. yoshihitoiP. Clerc & A. Gerlach sp. nov. (characterized by a lax medulla with non-conglutinated hyphae).Usnea krogianais a new record for Asia;Usnea brasiliensis,Usnea confusaandU. croceorubescensare new records for the Philippines. This is the first phylogenetic study to include DNA sequences ofUsneafrom the Philippines. Molecular data from the ITS rDNA (76 newly generated sequences) are presented for most taxa except forU. himalayana,U. longissimaandU. subscabrosa. At least six further taxa remain unidentified, awaiting the collection of additional specimens. 

Lichens collected worldwide for centuries have resulted in millions of specimens deposited in herbaria that offer the potential to assess species boundaries, phenotypic diversification, ecology, and distribution. The application of molecular approaches to historical collections has been limited due to DNA fragmentation, but high-throughput sequencing offers an opportunity to overcome this barrier. Here, we combined a large dataset of ITS sequences from recently collected material and historical collections, obtained through Sanger, 454, or Illumina Sequencing, to test the performance of ITS barcoding in two genera of lichenized Basidiomycota: Cora and Corella. We attempted to generate new sequence data for 62 fresh specimens (from 2016) and 274 historical collections (collected between 1888 and 1998), for a final dataset of 1325 sequences. We compared various quantitative approaches to delimit species (GMYC, bPTP, ASAP, ABGD) and tested the resolution and accuracy of the ITS fungal barcoding marker by comparison with a six-marker dataset. Finally, we quantitatively compared phylogenetic and phenotypic species delimitation for 87 selected Cora species that have been formally described. Our HTS approach successfully generated ITS sequences for 76% of the historical collections, and our results show that an integrative approach is the gold-standard for understanding diversity in this group.