A new nivicolous species of Lamproderma (Myxomycetes) from lowland and mountainous regions of Europe

Based on morphological characteristics and three molecular markers (18S rDNA, EF1A and ITS), we describe as new to science a dark-spored myxomycete, Lamproderma zonatopulchel-lum. The new species is morphologically similar to L. zonatum, sharing ovoid sporothecae and concentric zonate coloration on the peridium with the latter. However, the small sporocarps and a pale capillitium distinguish L. zonatopulchellum from L. zonatum and ally it with L. pulchellum. Genetically, L. zonatopulchellum represents one of several branches closely related to L. pulchel-lum and very distant from L. zonatum. We sequenced three variants of each marker gene 18S rDNA, EF1A and ITS in ten accessions assigned to L. zonatopulchellum, which formed unique pairs of alleles, providing no evidence of recombination. This may indicate a possible separation of L. zonatopulchellum into biospecies, but may as well be caused simply by geographic isolation between the specimens investigated by us. Genetic distances calculated from 18S, EF1A and ITS sequences for the genus Lamproderma as a whole show no universal threshold for species delimita-tion. However, 18S and EF1A revealed local barcode gaps, thus allowing to delimit species within subgeneric groups. An alignment-free evaluation demonstrates that the ITS region of Lamproder-ma, although extremely variable, retains the evolutionary signal and adequately reflects evolution-ary relationships.