Assessment Notes

Justification

Neoburgoa freyi has been recorded from several localities and is hypothesised to be widespread within its hosts' range. It has been described to be found growing on three different hosts all of which are not threatened and widely distributed. There are no current data on population declines or threats. This species is listed as Least Concern (LC).

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Geographic range

This species is known from multiple localities in the Alps in Switzerland (Lawrey et al. 2016) and Austria (Berger and Zimmerman 2022). It is very likely this species is widespread in the Alps (Lawrey et al. 2016). It has also been detected in the Russian Arctic, as well (Zhurbenko and Pino-Bodas 2017).

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Population and Trends

There is no current information on the population size of this species, but it has been recorded from 14 localities in the Alps growing on Cladonia rangiferina (Lawrey et al. 2016), Cladonia stellaris and Cetraria nivalis (Berger and Zimmerman 2022) which are all widespread. It is suspected this species is widespread within its host range.

Population Trend: Unknown

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Habitat and Ecology

This species is known from the thalli of its hosts, Cladonia rangiferina (Lawrey et al. 2016), Cladonia stellaris and Cetraria nivalis (Berger and Zimmerman 2022). There has been no visible damage or interaction with the thalli observed indicating the host and species have likely evolved together for a long period (Lawrey et al. 2016). This species is characterised by conspicuous yellow to orange bulbils growing on its host lichen (Berger and Zimmerman 2022) with no observed mycelium (Lawrey et al. 2016).

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Threats

No major threats are known.

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Conservation Actions

No conservation actions are thought to be needed, but further surveys may be useful.

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Source and Citation

Canteiro, C. & Whitacre, G. 2026. Neoburgoa freyi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2026: e.T290320808A290321554. Accessed on 11 July 2026.

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• Country occurrence