Flora diversity survey and establishment of a plant DNA barcode database of Lomas ecosystems in Peru.

Lomas formations or "fog oases" are islands of vegetation in the desert belt of the west coast of South America, with a unique vegetation composition among the world's deserts. However, plant diversity and conservation studies have long been neglected, and there exists a severe gap in plant DNA sequence information. To address the lack of DNA information, we conducted field collections and laboratory DNA sequencing to establish a DNA barcode reference library of Lomas plants from Peru. This database provides 1,207 plant specimens and 3,129 DNA barcodes data corresponding with collections from 16 Lomas locations in Peru, during 2017 and 2018. This database will facilitate both rapid species identification and basic studies on plant diversity, thereby enhancing our understanding of Lomas flora's composition and temporal variation, and providing valuable resources for conserving plant diversity and maintaining the stability of the fragile Lomas ecosystems.

Didymium azorellae, a new myxomycete from cushion plants of cold arid areas of South America.

A new species of Didymium (Myxomycetes), D. azorellae, isolated from plant debris in a moist chamber, collected during studies of cold arid areas of Argentina and Peru, is described. It can be distinguished by its small size, the tightly packed layer of lime crystals on the peridium, the very scant, or absent, capillitium, and the unique spore ornamentation, especially by scanning electron microscopy. The species developed on dead leaves of cushion plants growing in the extremely harsh environments of the central Andean puna at almost 5000 m elevation and the Andino-Patagonian steppe. Morphology was examined with scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy, and micrographs of relevant details are included here. In order to confirm the identity of the new species described in this paper, a molecular study was conducted based on partial sequences of both the 18S rRNA and the elongation factor 1-alpha gene. Phylogenetic analysis including two specimens from different countries of the newly described species, Didymium azorellae, strongly supports the grouping of these specimens as a separate clade from the rest of the analyzed species.