Neoprotoparmelia was
circumscribed in 2018 by lichenologists Garima Singh,
H. Thorsten Lumbsch, and Imke Schmitt. Its species were formerly placed in
Maronina, a genus with a somewhat controversial
taxonomic status prior to the advent of modern
molecular phylogenetics.
Maronina was created in 1990 to contain two species with multispored
asci:
M. multifera, and the
type species,
Maronina australiensis. Based on a similarity of ascus characters in
Maronina and
Protoparmelia, the authors suggested a close relationship between the two, considering
Maronina a multispored derivative of
Protoparmelia. Later, molecular data confirmed the close
phylogenetic relationship between
Maronina with
Protoparmelia and the former was subsumed into the latter. In 2017, Kraichak and colleagues proposed the use of a temporal banding approach for a consistent classification of taxa at higher taxonomic levels (at family and genus level) for lichen-forming fungi. This approach identifies a
divergence time of about 102–112
Ma for
families and 29–33 Ma for genera. Because the divergence between
Maronina and
Protoparmelia is estimated to have occurred about 70 Ma, the genus
Maronina was resurrected for use. Molecular analysis revealed that the type species of
Maronina,
M. australiensis, is
sister to a
clade containing
Protoparmelia and
Maronina, demonstrating the circumscription of
Maronina to be
polyphyletic. To resolve this, Singh and colleagues proposed restricting
Maronina to two Australian species (
M. australiensis and
M. hesperia), and created
Neoprotoparmelia to contain the former
Maronina species. These species had been previously recognized as an independent
lineage, and termed the "tropical Protoparmelia clade" in a prior phylogenetic analysis.
Neoprotoparmelia originally contained 14 species – eight newly described and six
new combinations, including the
type species,
N. corallifera. Two new combinations and six new species (mostly from Brazil) were added to the genus in 2019.
Neoprotoparmelia,
Protoparmelia, and
Maronina are all part of the subfamily Protoparmelioideae in the family Parmeliaceae. The genus name combines the
Greek νέος (
néos, meaning "new") with
Protoparmelia, alluding to its close relationship with that genus. ==Description==