A taxonomic revision of the genus Conidiobolus (Ancylistaceae, Entomophthorales): four clades including three new genera

Abstract

The genus Conidiobolus is an important group in entomophthoroid fungi and is considered to be polyphyletic in recent molecular phylogenies. To re-evaluate and delimit this genus, multi-locus phylogenetic analyses were performed using the large and small subunits of nuclear ribosomal DNA (nucLSU and nucSSU), the small subunit of the mitochondrial ribosomal DNA (mtSSU) and the translation elongation factor 1-alpha (EF-1α). The results indicated that the Conidiobolus is not monophyletic, being grouped into a paraphyletic grade with four clades. Consequently, the well-known Conidiobolus is revised and three new genera Capillidium, Microconidiobolus and Neoconidiobolus are proposed along with one new record and 22 new combinations. In addition, the genus Basidiobolus is found to be basal to the other entomophthoroid taxa and the genus Batkoa locates in the Entomophthoraceae clade.

Three new species of Conidiobolus sensu stricto from plant debris in eastern China

“…Universal primer pairs LR0R (5'-ACC CGC TGA ACT TAA GC-3') and LR5 (5'-TCC TGA GGG AAA CTT CG-3') (Vilgalys and Hester 1990), mtSSU1 (5'-GCW GCA GTG RGG AAT NTT GGR CAA T-3') and mtSSU2R (5'-GTR GAC TAM TSR GGT ATC TAA TC-3') (Zoller et al 1999) and EF983 (5'-GCY CCY GGH CAY CGT GAY TTY AT-3') and EF1aZ-1R (5'-ACA TCW CCG ACA CCC TTG ATC TTG -3') (Nie et al 2012) were used for the amplification of the partial region of nucLSU, mtSSU and TEF1, respectively. The PCR reactions followed those in Liu et al (2005) and Nie et al (2012Nie et al ( , 2020. A 50 μl mixture contained 200 μM dNTPs each, 1 × Mgfree buffer, 2.5 mM MgCl 2 , 0.5 μM primers each, 50 ng genomic DNA and 2 U Taq polymerase (Super Pfx DNA Polymerase, Cowinbioscience Co. Ltd., Shanghai, China).…”

“…The nucLSU, mtSSU and TEF1 sequences were aligned with Clustal X (Thompson et al 1997) and deposited at TreeBase (submission ID 26063). Phylogenetic analyses with Bayesian Inference (BI), Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) were carried out according to Nie et al (2018Nie et al ( , 2020. BI phylogeny was estimated using MrBayes 3.1.2 (Ronquist and Huelsenbeck 2003).…”

“…Until 2018, no remarkable taxonomic treatments had been made for this genus, although additional species were reported continuously (Bałazy et al 1987, Waters and Callaghan 1989, Bałazy 1993, Tosi et al 2004, Huang et al 2007, Waingankar et al 2008, Nie et al 2012, 2016, 2017. Meanwhile, higher-rank molecular phylogenetic studies on entomophthoroid fungi suggested Conidiobolus to be polyphyletic (Jensen et al 1998, Gryganskyi et al 2013, Nie et al 2020. Consequently, the three genera Capillidium, Microconidiobolus and Neoconidiobolus were separated from Conidiobolus sensu lato and Conidiobolus sensu stricto was characterised by microspores arising from conidia (Nie et al 2020).…”

“…Meanwhile, higher-rank molecular phylogenetic studies on entomophthoroid fungi suggested Conidiobolus to be polyphyletic (Jensen et al 1998, Gryganskyi et al 2013, Nie et al 2020. Consequently, the three genera Capillidium, Microconidiobolus and Neoconidiobolus were separated from Conidiobolus sensu lato and Conidiobolus sensu stricto was characterised by microspores arising from conidia (Nie et al 2020).…”

“…During the past decade, Bo Huang's research group have carried out a comprehensive study on the taxonomy of Conidiobolus sensu lato in China and proposed five new species, five Chinese new records and 23 new combinations (Wang et al 2010a, b, Nie et al 2012, 2016, 2017, 2020, Chen and Huang 2018. Recent collections by this research group in eastern China resulted in the discovery of three unique species within the Conidiobolus sensu stricto lineage, which are described and illustrated herein with a multi-locus molecular phylogeny on the nuclear large subunit of rDNA (nucLSU), the mitochondrial small subunit of rDNA (mtSSU) and the translation elongation factor 1-alpha gene (TEF1).…”