Obligately Phagotrophic Aphelids Turned out to Branch with the Earliest-diverging Fungi

High-level classification of the Fungi and a tool for evolutionary ecological analyses

“…Since nothing is known about the morphology of these clades, we consider these tentatively as subkingdom-level groups within Fungi, because of their supported monophyly with Fungi and divergence time of \ 1000 Ma. Many taxonomists place the unicellular Rozellomycota, Microsporidia and Aphelida within Fungi (James et al 2006a;Jones et al 2011a, Adl et al 2012James and Berbee 2012 and further studies on fungal classification), but other authors indicate the monophyly of Aphelida and Rozellomycota in a sister position to all other Fungi (Karpov et al 2013;2014b, 2017bLetcher et al 2013Letcher et al , 2017 and treat this socalled ARM clade as phylum Ophistosporidia (Karpov et al 2014b) or a part of the intentionally paraphyletic phylum Choanozoa, which includes protists at the base of Metazoa (Cavalier-Smith 2013; Ruggiero et al 2015). However, taxonomically more inclusive phylogenies place these groups separately-Rozellomycota and Microsporidia at the basal position of Fungi but Aphelida nested within 'chytrids' and/or zoopagaceous zygomycetes (Lazarus and James 2015;Tedersoo et al , 2018.…”

The Eukaryotic Tree of Life from a Global Phylogenomic Perspective

“…Animals emerged from within a paraphyletic assemblage of protists, including the choanoflagellates (e.g., Monosiga), Filasterea (e.g., Capsaspora), and Ichthyosporea (e.g., Sphaeroforma; Steenkamp et al 2006;RuizTrillo et al 2008;Shalchian-Tabrizi et al 2008;del Campo and Ruiz-Trillo 2013). Fungi, including the monophyletic and early assemblage comprising Cryptomycota (e.g., Rozella), aphelids, and microsporidians (Lara et al 2010;Jones et al 2011a,b;James et al 2013;Karpov et al 2013) are closely related to nucleariid amoeba (Nuclearia simplex) and the aggregative slime mold Fonticula (Brown et al 2009;Liu et al 2009Liu et al , 2012. Opisthokonts are putatively united by the presence of a single posterior flagellum in several representatives (CavalierSmith and Chao 1995), and many molecularbased evidences (single-gene phylogenies, phylogenomics, and indels) have consistently supported the existence of this group (e.g., Baldauf and Palmer 1993;Wainright et al 1993;Baldauf et al 2000;Brown et al 2009;Liu et al 2009).…”

2 Genomics to Study Basal Lineage Fungal Biology: Phylogenomics Suggests a Common Origin

“…The term was validly described in accordance with the ICNAFP (Jones et al 2011b). Recently, a cultured aphelid species, Amoeboaphelidium protococcarum, was shown to form a monophyletic group with Rozella and microsporidia as a sister group to the Fungi and uses, unlike fungi, a non-canonical nuclear genetic code, which provides evidence for Rozella's non-fungal affiliation (Karpov et al 2013). Aphelids resemble primitive opisthokont protists that produce zoospores and possess, unlike fungi, a phagotrophic mode of nutrition uptake, which qualifies them as descendents of the common ancestor of fungi and multicellular animals right at the divergence point of the fungi from the animal kingdom.…”