Another dark taxon comes to light: Eludereomycetes, class nov. (Pucciniomycotina, Basidiomycota), and its first known living representative, Eluderea minerophilus, gen. et sp. nov.

• Only a small fraction of the world’s fungi is described, and the large number of unnamed fungal sequences from environmental DNA serves as a significant complication for taxonomic identification in metabarcoding studies.  There are several deeply diverged fungal lineages—some hypothesized to represent class and order ranks—currently known only by environmental DNA sequences that represent them.  Here, we describe a previously unidentified fungal culture as the first living representative of one of these lineages (previously referred to as ‘clade GS25’, hypothesized as an early diverging lineage sister to the Pucciniomycotina, Basidiomycota) and present its sequenced genome.  We used a phylogenomic approach to test the placement and taxonomic rank of this lineage.  We formally describe the first known species in Eludereomycetes, class nov. (Pucciniomycotina, Basidiomycota): Eluderea minerophilus, gen. et sp. nov.  This species was isolated from Pinus sylvestris roots collected from a Swedish pine forest, where previously published environmental sequencing data from the site indicate that it is almost exclusively found in the deeper mineral soil horizons.  Our analysis shows that the most closely related described species to E. minerophilus likely belongs to the Classiculomycetes, a class within the Pucciniomycotina that is morphologically, molecularly, and ecologically distinct from the Eludereomycetes.  Identification of a living representative for this lineage previously detected in environmental DNA, ‘clade GS25’, and describing it as a new species was a somewhat serendipitous discovery made possible in part due to characteristics of two previously published studies.  We call attention to some of these aspects and propose a set of practices that could be adopted by the research community to help facilitate more connections between living fungus and environmental DNA sequence.  The use of such practices would in turn help to alleviate some of the complications associated with unidentified fungal DNA sequences in reference databases and contribute towards a more complete understanding of fungal diversity.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Biologisk systematik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Biological Systematics (hsv//eng)

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