Mortierella thereuopodae, a new species with verticillate large sporangiophores, inhabiting fecal pellets of Scutigeromorpha

Abstract

ChlamydosporeTaxonomy Trophocyst Zygomycota a b s t r a c t A new species, Mortierella thereuopodae, is described for a fungus sporulating on fecal pellets of the centipede Thereuopoda clunifera (Chilopoda). The species produces large cymosely to verticillately branched sporangiophores on well-developed rhizoids with the formation of chlamydospore clusters.In the course of the survey for the mortierellaceous fungi in Japan, unusual species with relatively large cymosely to verticillately branched sporangiophores were noticed around the fecal pellets of a centipede on agar media. The sporangiophores are hyaline, almost lacking a columella, with narrow, dichotomously branched hyphae, suggesting a member of the genus Mortierella that could not to be assigned to a known species. Based on the precise observations on the asexual morphology in pure cultures of the three available isolates, and the special habitat (origin of isolation), the fungus was judged to be an undescribed taxon of section Spinosa of the genus Mortierella. The new species was described with illustrations and the sequences of nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2; ITS) were determined.Animals of the family Scutigeridae (order Scutigeromorpha, class Chilopoda) were collected in Honshu and Ryukyu islands, Japan, then moved to the laboratory and kept in a plastic container to obtain fecal pellets. With the monograph of soil arthropods (Shinohara 1999), the animals were identified as Thereuopoda clunifera. Fecal pellets were placed on agar plates of nutrient-poor media with the addition of penicillin-G sodium salt and streptomycin sulfate; 1.5% water agar (WA) or 0.3% shrimp agar (Sh3A; Degawa and Tokumasu 1997), and incubated at room temperature (ca. 23 C). From the developing sporangiophores, sporangiospores were picked up /locate /m yc m y c o s c i e n c e 5 5 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 3 0 8 e3 1 3 1340-3540/$ e see front matter ª

Revisiting the isolation source after the first discovery: <i>Myconymphaea yatsukahoi</i> on excrements of <i>Lithobiomorpha</i> (<i>Chilopoda</i>)

“…These behaviors mean that the sporophores of M. yatsukahoi that are in the environment are more likely to attach to Lithobiomorpha , and also that Lithobiomorpha are more likely to re-distribute the sporangiospores of M. yatsukahoi by excretion. Similar to this, Degawa, Ohsawa, Suyama, and Morishita (2014) previously speculated spore dispersal of fungi via grooming by centipedes through the study of Mortierella thereuopodae ( Mortierellales ) occurring on excrements of Thereuopoda clunifera ( Scutigeromorpha , Chilopoda ). The observation of sporophores of M. yatsukahoi under a decaying log indicates that sporangiospores of this fungus probably rely on dispersal via attachment to small soil animals rather than by wind.…”

Prevalence and Intra-Family Phylogenetic Divergence of <i>Burkholderiaceae</i>-Related Endobacteria Associated with Species of <i>Mortierella</i>

“…The custom database consisted of 307 sequences from different phylotypes of 90 Mortierellomycotinan species. Most sequences (299 sequences) were used in a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the genus Mortierella by Wagner et al (53), and the others were one sequence of M. elasson that was obtained from the type strain CBS 220.29, six sequences deposited along with new species descriptions, such as M. calciphila (25), M. fluviae (16), M. signyensis (5), and M. thereuopodae (11), and two sequences obtained from Modicella spp., from a different genus but phylogenetically included within the genus Mortierella (40). The blastn searches with our trimmed ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 sequences using the custom database were conducted to identify the closest species using BLAST+ version 2.5.0 (6).…”

“…Mortierella spp. inhabit diverse ecological niches such as various soil types (53) and specific substrates, including the bodies of arthropods (8, 9, 54) and animal dung (7, 10, 11, 13, 20). The genus Mortierella is one of the largest genera in Mucoromycota and contains nearly 100 described species, which are morphologically classified into nine sections (13) and phylogenetically classified into seven phylogenetic groups (53).…”

Resolving the Mortierellaceae phylogeny through synthesis of multi-gene phylogenetics and phylogenomics

“…Currently, there are close to 125 accepted Mortierellaceae species, and new species continue to be formally described each year (see Supplementary Table 1). Estimates based on environmental sequencing predict there to be more than 170 Mortierellaceae species worldwide, indicating at least one quarter of the species in this family remain to be described (Gams 1977;Benny 2009;Nagy et al 2011;Smith et al 2013;Wagner et al 2013;Degawa et al 2014;Takashima et al 2018a, b). The current Mortierellaceae classification divides species into six genera: Aquamortierella, Dissophora, Gamsiella, Lobosporangium, Mortierella, and Modicella (Benny 2009).…”