The numbers of fungi: contributions from traditional taxonomic studies and challenges of metabarcoding

Abstract

The global diversity of fungi has been estimated using several different approaches. There is somewhere between 2–11 million estimated species, but the number of formally described taxa is around 150,000, a tiny fraction of the total. In this paper, we examine 12 ascomycete genera as case studies to establish trends in fungal species descriptions, and introduce new species in each genus. To highlight the importance of traditional morpho-molecular methods in publishing new species, we introduce novel taxa in 12 genera that are considered to have low species discovery. We discuss whether the species are likely to be rare or due to a lack of extensive sampling and classification. The genera are Apiospora, Bambusicola, Beltrania, Capronia, Distoseptispora, Endocalyx, Neocatenulostroma, Neodeightonia, Paraconiothyrium, Peroneutypa, Phaeoacremonium and Vanakripa. We discuss host-specificity in selected genera and compare the number of species epithets in each genus with the number of ITS (barcode) sequences deposited in GenBank and UNITE. We furthermore discuss the relationship between the divergence times of these genera with those of their hosts. We hypothesize whether there might be more species in these genera and discuss hosts and habitats that should be investigated for novel species discovery.

Description of Four Novel Species in Pleosporales Associated with Coffee in Yunnan, China

“…In subsequent studies, some species were classified into other genera. In our phylogenetic tree, we also found the same taxonomic problems in this genus as Phukhamsakda et al [ 83 ]. Paraconiothyrium nelloi and Paraco .…”

Polyphasic Identification of Distoseptispora with Six New Species from Fresh Water

“…To date, a total of 54 Distoseptispora species have been reported. They have been found to cluster into three well-supported clades, which is in agreement with all previous studies on Distoseptispora [ 5 , 8 , 9 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. The morphologies of Distoseptispora species are similar, and taxonomic identifications mainly rely on phylogeny.…”

“…The raw sequences were initially checked with Finch TV v. 1.4.0, and each gene was subjected to a BlastN search in NCBI’s GenBank to assess the confidence level. Sequences of Distoseptisporaceae species, along with the newly generated sequences and related taxa, following Dong et al [ 9 ] and Phukhamsakda et al [ 25 ], were downloaded from GenBank. The gene sequences were aligned using the online multiple alignment program MAFFT v. 7 ( , accessed on 7 April 2022) [ 32 ] and manually improved, where necessary, in BioEdit v. 7.2 [ 33 ], then concatenated with Mesquite v. 3.11.…”

“…Subsequently, the generic concept of Distoseptispora was emended to include percurrently elongating conidiogenous cells and euseptate, verrucose conidia with percurrent proliferation, based on the newly introduced species D. guttulata and D. suoluoensis [ 5 ]. In the past five years, more than 40 new species (excluding D. submersa ) were successively reported in Thailand and China [ 3 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Distoseptispora submersa , found on submerged wood in China, was introduced by Luo et al [ 17 ].…”

New studies on Apiospora (Amphisphaeriales, Apiosporaceae): epitypification of Sphaeria apiospora, proposal of Ap. marianiae sp. nov. and description of the asexual morph of Ap. sichuanensis

“…The sequences employed (Suppl. material 1) were mainly retrieved from Smith et al (2003), Singh et al (2012), Crous and Groenewald (2013), Crous et al (2015Crous et al ( , 2020, Senanayake et al (2015), Dai et al (2016Dai et al ( , 2017, Wang et al (2017Wang et al ( , 2018, Jiang et al (2018Jiang et al ( , 2019Jiang et al ( , 2020, Liu et al (2019), Pintos et al (2019), Yan et al (2019), Yang et al (2019, Senanayake et al (2020), Pintos and Alvarado (2021), Kwon et al (2021), Phukhamsakda et al (2022) and Samarakoon et al (2022). Sequences first were aligned in MEGA software with its Clustal W application and then corrected manually.…”