Exploring the Species Diversity of Edible Mushrooms in Yunnan, Southwestern China, by DNA Barcoding

Abstract

Yunnan Province, China, is famous for its abundant wild edible mushroom diversity and a rich source of the world’s wild mushroom trade markets. However, much remains unknown about the diversity of edible mushrooms, including the number of wild edible mushroom species and their distributions. In this study, we collected and analyzed 3585 mushroom samples from wild mushroom markets in 35 counties across Yunnan Province from 2010 to 2019. Among these samples, we successfully obtained the DNA barcode sequences from 2198 samples. Sequence comparisons revealed that these 2198 samples likely belonged to 159 known species in 56 different genera, 31 families, 11 orders, 2 classes, and 2 phyla. Significantly, 51.13% of these samples had sequence similarities to known species at lower than 97%, likely representing new taxa. Further phylogenetic analyses on several common mushroom groups including 1536 internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences suggested the existence of 20 new (cryptic) species in these groups. The extensive new and cryptic species diversity in wild mushroom markets in Yunnan calls for greater attention for the conservation and utilization of these resources. Our results on both the distinct barcode sequences and the distributions of these sequences should facilitate new mushroom species discovery and forensic authentication of high-valued mushrooms and contribute to the scientific inventory for the management of wild mushroom markets.

Description of the Fifth New Species of Russula subsect. Maculatinae from Pakistan Indicates Local Diversity Hotspot of Ectomycorrhizal Fungi in Southwestern Himalayas

“…in the country [57,58]. Russula is apparently among the most valuable traded edible fungi in China [59] and also in Himalayan regions of Northern India and Nepal, but they are usually members of subgenera Heterophyllidiae Romagn. and Brevipedum Buyck and V. Hofst.…”

Evidence for Persistent Heteroplasmy and Ancient Recombination in the Mitochondrial Genomes of the Edible Yellow Chanterelles From Southwestern China and Europe

“…This study analyzed 96 samples using sequence information at both the tef-1 locus and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of the ribosomal RNA gene cluster. However, a very conservative cutoff for species delimitation was used in new species estimation in this study (Zhang et al, 2021). Another study identified that most of the edible yellow chanterelles old in the Yunnan local markets belonged to C. Yunnanensis based on both morphological and tef-1sequences, and not the traditionally assumed C. cibarius (Shao et al, 2021).…”

“…Because of the relatively high heterogeneity of the primary fungal DNA barcode ITS within individual samples of C. cibarius and related species, high quality ITS sequences are often not available for species identification within this species complex (Buyck et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2021). Instead, as in previous studies , the tef-1 gene was used as the DNA barcode to determine the taxonomic placements of our Cantharellus specimens.…”

“…For example, of the 2,000 or so wild edible mushroom species in the world, over 900 are found in Yunnan (Yang, 2002;Feng and Yang, 2018). Based on ITS barcoding, our recent survey identified a high species diversity of wild mushrooms in local markets, including a large number of putative new taxa (Zhang et al, 2021). Some of these mushrooms are very important to both the local and regional economy.…”

“…However, recent studies have reported several new chanterelles from China (Shao et al, 2011;Tian et al, 2012;Shao et al, 2014Shao et al, , 2016aAn et al, 2017;Jian et al, 2020), Japan (Suhara and Kurogi, 2015;Ogawa et al, 2018), Korea (Antonin et al, 2017;Buyck et al, 2020), Malaysia (Eyssartier et al, 2009;Buyck et al, 2014), India (Das et al, 2015;Buyck et al, 2018), and Iran (Parad et al, 2018). Recently, a large-scale survey of wild edible mushrooms in local markets in Yunnan province, southwestern China, revealed that there was at least one cryptic species within this group of species in this region (Zhang et al, 2021). This study analyzed 96 samples using sequence information at both the tef-1 locus and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of the ribosomal RNA gene cluster.…”