Diversity, ecology and specificity in Antarctic lichens

-multiple marker based phylogenitc and genetic diversity analyses -testing of mycobiont-photobiont specificity -testing for climate-related preferences of photobionts, mycobionts and their symbiosis - culturing and morpholgical analyses of newly discovered photobionts This research project aims at gaining a broad-scale view of the contribution of ecological (climate-related) processes to the origin and maintenance of species and/or clade boundaries in lecideoid lichens and to the selectivity of mycobionts towards their photobionts throughout the southern Polar region.