The genus Phyllopsora Müll. Arg. and other morphologically similar taxa are commonly growing on tree trunks and main branches in tropical/subtropical rainforests and moist forests and woodlands globally. The so-called phyllopsoroid growth form is characterised by scattered to contiguous areolae or squamules developing from a more or less well-developed, arachnoid hypothallus. The relative sparsity of morphological characters has made species recognition and generic circumscriptions challenging. In Phyllopsora alone, more than 130 species names exist, and its taxonomy has grown to be partly incomprehensible from morphological and chemical perspectives. Using multi-locus phylogenetics, we have circumscribed several phyllopsoroid genera and identified their phylogenetic placement within (and partly outside) the Ramalinaceae. Ancestral state reconstructions suggest that the Ramalinaceae evolved from a species with long, multiseptate ascospores living in humid temperate forests and that the phyllopsoroid growth form has evolved repeatedly within the family, the latter rendering phyllopsoroid growth form a poor character for generic circumscription in the Ramalinaceae. At the species level, we give molecular characterizations of the current species hypothesis (as we understand them), by providing DNA barcode sequences (nrITS) for most species. The focus of this talk is phylogenies, barcode gaps, and species hypothesis among the paleotropical phyllopsoroid lichens, with emphasis on the Ramalinacean genera Aciculopsora, Bacidiopsora, Eschatogonia, Krogia, Phyllopsora, and Sporacestra.
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