Entorrhiza is a small fungal genus comprising 14 species that all cause galls on roots of Cyperaceae and Juncaceae. Although this genus was established 130 years ago, crucial questions on the ...phylogenetic relationships and biology of this enigmatic taxon are still unanswered. In order to infer a robust hypothesis about the phylogenetic position of Entorrhiza and to evaluate evolutionary trends, multiple gene sequences and morphological characteristics of Entorrhiza were analyzed and compared with respective findings in Fungi. In our comprehensive five-gene analyses Entorrhiza appeared as a highly supported monophyletic lineage representing the sister group to the rest of the Dikarya, a phylogenetic placement that received but moderate maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony bootstrap support. An alternative maximum likelihood tree with the constraint that Entorrhiza forms a monophyletic group with Basidiomycota could not be rejected. According to the first phylogenetic hypothesis, the teliospore tetrads of Entorrhiza represent the prototype of the dikaryan meiosporangium. The alternative hypothesis is supported by similarities in septal pore structure, cell wall and spindle pole bodies. Based on the isolated phylogenetic position of Entorrhiza and its peculiar combination of features related to ultrastructure and reproduction mode, we propose a new phylum Entorrhizomycota, for the genus Entorrhiza, which represents an apparently widespread group of inconspicuous fungi.
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Yeast-like fungi inhabit soils throughout all climatic zones in a great abundance. While recent estimations predicted a plethora of prokaryotic taxa in one gram of soil, similar data are lacking for ...fungi, especially yeasts.
We assessed the diversity of soil yeasts in different forests of central Germany using cultivation-based techniques with subsequent identification based on rDNA sequence data. Based on experiments using various pre-cultivation sample treatment and different cultivation media we obtained the highest number of yeasts by analysing mixed soil samples with a single nutrient-rich medium. Additionally, several species richness estimators were applied to incidence-based data of 165 samples. All of them predicted a similar range of yeast diversity, namely 14 to 16 species. Randomized species richness curves reached saturation in all applied estimators, thus indicating that the majority of species is detected after approximately 30 to 50 samples analysed.
In this study we demonstrate that robust species identification as well as mathematical approaches are essential to reliably estimate the sampling effort needed to describe soil yeast communities. This approach has great potential for optimisation of cultivation techniques and allows high throughput analysis in the future.
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Very few principles have been unraveled that explain the relationship between soil properties and soil biota across large spatial scales and different land-use types. Here, we seek these general ...relationships using data from 52 differently managed grassland and forest soils in three study regions spanning a latitudinal gradient in Germany. We hypothesize that, after extraction of variation that is explained by location and land-use type, soil properties still explain significant proportions of variation in the abundance and diversity of soil biota. If the relationships between predictors and soil organisms were analyzed individually for each predictor group, soil properties explained the highest amount of variation in soil biota abundance and diversity, followed by land-use type and sampling location. After extraction of variation that originated from location or land-use, abiotic soil properties explained significant amounts of variation in fungal, meso- and macrofauna, but not in yeast or bacterial biomass or diversity. Nitrate or nitrogen concentration and fungal biomass were positively related, but nitrate concentration was negatively related to the abundances of Collembola and mites and to the myriapod species richness across a range of forest and grassland soils. The species richness of earthworms was positively correlated with clay content of soils independent of sample location and land-use type. Our study indicates that after accounting for heterogeneity resulting from large scale differences among sampling locations and land-use types, soil properties still explain significant proportions of variation in fungal and soil fauna abundance or diversity. However, soil biota was also related to processes that act at larger spatial scales and bacteria or soil yeasts only showed weak relationships to soil properties. We therefore argue that more general relationships between soil properties and soil biota can only be derived from future studies that consider larger spatial scales and different land-use types.
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The smut fungal genus
Microbotryum
(Microbotryales, Pucciniomycotina) contains species that parasitize plants from many different lineages of euasterids, with host specificity of individual parasite ...species in general being exceptionally high. Additionally, it has been shown that the location of spore production in some species is related to spore dispersal. In this phylogenetic study based on ITS and LSU rDNA data of 57
Microbotryum
spp., host spectra and sorus location are mapped on the phylogeny of
Microbotryum
species in order to understand the macroevolutionary patterns of these two traits. We find that monophyletic parasite clades correspond well with monophyletic host clades and also that monophyletic parasite groups in general produce their spores in the same plant organ. Ancestral state reconstruction inferred the most probable ancestral trait for sorus location being leaves and the most probable ancestral host family for the genus
Microbotryum
as being the Polygonaceae. According to molecular analyses, a newly sequenced specimen of
Ustilago ducellieri
, a seed parasite on
Arenaria leptoclados
, previously treated as synonym of
Microbotryum duriaeanum
, belongs to a lineage distinct from specimens of
M. duriaeanum
. A new combination,
Microbotryum ducellieri
, is accordingly proposed. Taxonomic implications of the presented analyses for the genera
Bauhinus
and
Haradaea
are briefly discussed.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Fungal communities in above-ground tree tissues are hyperdiverse and are influenced by biotic interactions with other organisms living in or on these tissues. These biotic interactions are, however, ...still poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to understand how insect-associated gall formation on
foliage correlates with the diversity of foliar fungal communities in surrounding healthy leaf tissue, as well as the co-occurrence patterns among the members of the fungal community. We used ITS metabarcoding to characterise the foliar fungal communities of 179 individual
trees. These trees were assigned to infestation levels of the wasp
(Eulophidae: Hymenoptera), which causes gall formation on shoot tips and leaves of its host. Fungal community networks were calculated using a Pearson correlation coefficient. The composition and diversity of fungal communities were influenced by the severity of
infestations. We identified potential
pathogens with high sequence abundance at all disease severity levels, but network analysis indicated that the co-occurrence of potential pathogens between no to mild and medium to heavy infestation differed significantly. A better understanding of microbial interactions, especially the role of pathogens, can be useful for controlling disease- and beneficial host-associated microbial communities.
Hybridization is a central mechanism in evolution, producing new species or introducing important genetic variation into existing species. In plant-pathogenic fungi, adaptation and specialization to ...exploit a host species are key determinants of evolutionary success. Here, we performed experimental crosses between the two pathogenic Microbotryum species, M. lychnidis-dioicae and M. silenes-acaulis that are specialized to different hosts. The resulting offspring were analyzed on phenotypic and genomic levels to describe genomic characteristics of hybrid offspring and genetic factors likely involved in host-specialization.
Genomic analyses of interspecific fungal hybrids revealed that individuals were most viable if the majority of loci were inherited from one species. Interestingly, species-specific loci were strictly controlled by the species' origin of the mating type locus. Moreover we detected signs of crossing over and chromosome duplications in the genomes of the analyzed hybrids. In Microbotryum, mitochondrial DNA was found to be uniparentally inherited from the a
mating type. Genome comparison revealed that most gene families are shared and the majority of genes are conserved between the two species, indicating very similar biological features, including infection and pathogenicity processes. Moreover, we detected 211 candidate genes that were retained under host-driven selection of backcrossed lines. These genes and might therefore either play a crucial role in host specialization or be linked to genes that are essential for specialization.
The combination of genome analyses with experimental selection and hybridization is a promising way to investigate host-pathogen interactions. This study manifests genetic factors of host specialization that are required for successful biotrophic infection of the post-zygotic stage, but also demonstrates the strong influence of intra-genomic conflicts or instabilities on the viability of hybrids in the haploid host-independent stage.
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Species delimitation is one of the most fundamental processes in biology. Biodiversity undertakings, for instance, require explicit species concepts and criteria for species delimitation in order to ...be relevant and translatable. However, a perfect species concept does not exist for Fungi. Here, we review the species concepts commonly used in Basidiomycota, the second largest phylum of Fungi that contains some of the best known species of mushrooms, rusts, smuts, and jelly fungi. In general, best practice is to delimitate species, publish new taxa, and conduct taxonomic revisions based on as many independent lines of evidence as possible, that is, by applying a so-called unifying (or integrative) conceptual framework. However, the types of data used vary considerably from group to group. For this reason we discuss the different classes of Basidiomycota, and for each provide: (i) a general introduction with difficulties faced in species recognition, (ii) species concepts and methods for species delimitation, and (iii) community recommendations and conclusions.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Heat resistance is the ability to survive short, extreme temperature stresses, exceeding the own growth temperature by far. Despite their occurrence in natural substrates and their relevance for the ...food and healthcare industry, the diversity of fungi with heat resistance abilities is poorly studied. Sampling of boreal forest soils in Canada in combination with a heat-shock treatment (75 °C, 30 min) yielded, among others, four heat resistant, mesophilic fungal isolates. Based on rDNA barcode sequences, the novel isolates were assigned to
Basidiomycota
. In this study, we use macromorphological and micromorphological observations, cultivation assays and comparative genomics for physiological characterization, interspecific differentiation, and phylogenetic placement of these isolates. A phylogeny of 38 single-copy orthologous genes, an orthology analysis, and septal pore type analysis revealed the isolates as representatives of two new basidiomycetous species of the novel class
Peribolosporomycetes
, a sister lineage to all other members of
Ustilaginomycotina
. Further genomic and phenotypic data support two different species (
Peribolospora kevripleyi
,
Peribolospora baueri
), which are heat resistant and osmotolerant.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
A rare smut fungus, Anthracoidea pseudofoetidae, is reported for the first time from Russia, based on a specimen from the Altai Republic. Carex enervis is a new host record for A. pseudofoetidae. Two ...new records for Greece, Microbotryum duriaeanum and M. moenchiae-manticae, and a new record for Morocco, Microbotryum moehringiae, are also presented. Microbotryum moehringiae is recorded for the first time from Africa. Cerastium brachypetalum subsp. roeseri is a new host record for Microbotryum duriaeanum. New molecular data are provided for these smut fungi. Updated phylogenetic trees for Anthracoidea and Microbotryum are also given.
The maintenance of an intimate interaction between plant-biotrophic fungi and their hosts over evolutionary times involves strong selection and adaptative evolution of virulence-related genes. The ...highly specialised maize pathogen Ustilago maydis is assigned with a high evolutionary capability to overcome host resistances due to its high rates of sexual recombination, large population sizes and long distance dispersal. Unlike most studied fungus-plant interactions, the U. maydis - Zea mays pathosystem lacks a typical gene-for-gene interaction. It exerts a large set of secreted fungal virulence factors that are mostly organised in gene clusters. Their contribution to virulence has been experimentally demonstrated but their genetic diversity within U. maydis remains poorly understood. Here, we report on the intraspecific diversity of 34 potential virulence factor genes of U. maydis. We analysed their sequence polymorphisms in 17 isolates of U. maydis from Europe, North and Latin America. We focused on gene cluster 2A, associated with virulence attenuation, cluster 19A that is crucial for virulence, and the cluster-independent effector gene pep1. Although higher compared to four house-keeping genes, the overall levels of intraspecific genetic variation of virulence clusters 2A and 19A, and pep1 are remarkably low and commensurate to the levels of 14 studied non-virulence genes. In addition, each gene is present in all studied isolates and synteny in cluster 2A is conserved. Furthermore, 7 out of 34 virulence genes contain either no polymorphisms or only synonymous substitutions among all isolates. However, genetic variation of clusters 2A and 19A each resolve the large scale population structure of U. maydis indicating subpopulations with decreased gene flow. Hence, the genetic diversity of these virulence-related genes largely reflect the demographic history of U. maydis populations.
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