Leprocaulon inexpectatum is described here as a new lichen species and the fourth member of the genus known from Europe. It is characterized by the crustose-granulose, blue-grey to bluish green thallus composed of ±discrete, soredia-like granules c. 45–70 μm in diameter, and the production of usnic acid and zeorin. Based on ITS rDNA, the lichen is closely related to the saxicolous American species L. beechingii. The new species is reported here from numerous localities in north-western Italy. It occurs on the bark of oaks, chestnut, and black locust in open deciduous forests, often in floodplain ecosystems. Our investigation of its photobiont identity using ITS, 18S and rbcL demonstrated that its symbiotic partner represents an undescribed species within the genus Symbiochloris (Trebouxiophyceae). We provide an identification key to sterile crustose sorediate lichens containing usnic acid and zeorin found in Europe.

In the Central Amazonian floodplains, several hundred tree species grow in areas that are periodically flooded by nutrient-rich white-water rivers (várzea) and by nutrient poor black-water rivers (igapó). Seed masses of 31 species from várzea and 27 species from igapó were compared taking into consideration their taxonomic relatedness. Overall average seed mass was higher (mean = 7.08 g) in nutrient-poor igapó than in nutrient-rich várzea (mean = 1.16 g). In igapó, the species growing at high elevations on the flooding gradient had significantly higher seed masses than the species growing at low elevations. In várzea, no difference was found between species growing at high and low elevations. Four large-seeded species from igapó occurring at high elevations on the flooding gradient were responsible for most of the difference in average seed mass between forest types. These data suggest that at low positions in the flooding gradient in igapó, selection pressure on seed size is probably the same as in várzea. At sites with short periods of flooding in igapó forests, on high levels in the flooding gradient, the need for rapid height growth may have selected for species with larger seeds which enable seedlings to be less dependent on soil nutrients.