Short title: Caloplaca saxicola group. Align or not to align? Resolving species complexes within the Caloplaca saxicola group as a case study

Align or not to align? Resolving species complexes within the Caloplaca saxicola group as a case study Ester Gaya Department of Plant Biology (Botany Unit), Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain Benjamin D. Redelings National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), Durham, North Carolina 27705 Pere Navarro-Rosines Xavier Llimona Department of Plant Biology (Botany Unit), Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain Miquel De Caceres Biodiversity and Landscape Ecology Lab, Centre Tecnologic Forestal de Catalunya, Ctra. St. Llorenc de Morunys km 2, 25280 Solsona, Spain Francois Lutzoni Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708-0338 Abstract: The Caloplaca saxicola group is the main group of saxicolous, lobed-effigurate species within genus Caloplaca (Teloschistaceae, lichen-forming Ascomycota). A recent monographic revision by the first author detected a wide range of morphological variation. To confront the phenotypically based circumscription of these taxa and to resolve their relationships morphological and ITS rDNA data were obtained for 56 individuals representing eight Caloplaca species belonging to the C. saxicola group. We tested the monophyly of these eight morphospecies by performing maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and two different In Press at Mycologia, published on December 7, 2010 as doi:10.3852/10-120