Chrysosporium speluncarum, a new species resembling Ajellomyces capsulatus, obtained from bat guano in caves of temperate Europe

Abstract

A new species, Chrysosporium speluncarum, obtained from bat guano in caves in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania, is described, based on phenotype and rDNA sequences. It possesses tuberculate conidia similar to the Histoplasma anamorph of Ajellomyces capsulatus, but it is not dimorphic, does not grow at 37°C, lacks microconidia, and is nonpathogenic and nonkeratinolytic. All studied characteristics suggest a close relationship with Renispora flavissima. The morphologically similar C. chiropterorum, another species known from the bat environment, is a relative of C. lobatum and Polytolypa hystricis, but is distinct from A. capsulatus and C. speluncarum. The affinity for bats and the presence of conidia with prominent tuberculations has originated convergently in several groups of onygenalean fungi. In addition, the occurrence of fungi mimicking A. capsulatus in caves of temperate Europe is reviewed.

A comparative study of Neogymnomyces virgineus, a new keratinolytic species from dung, and its relationships with the Onygenales

“…Our phylogeny based on ITS sequence further confirms that Onygenaceae is a polyphyletic lineage, distributed in clades corresponding to those previously defined by LSU analyses (Sugiyama et al 2002;Untereiner et al 2002Untereiner et al , 2004Nováková and Kolařik 2010).…”

“…In agreement with Nováková and Kolařik (2010), our phylogenetic analysis shows the anamorphs of Neogymnomyces virgineus and Renispora flavissima to form a natural group with Chrysosporium speluncarum. They share abundant intercalary conidia and ornamented terminal and lateral conidia, but Chrysosporium speluncarum does not have a teleomorph, does not degrade keratin, and its tuberculate, predominantly subglobose conidia have finger-like projections, up to 3.5 μm long.…”

“…Carmich. (anamorph of Aphanoascus), C. lobatum Scharapov, C. merdarium, C. pannicola (Corda) Oorschot & Stalpers, and C. pseudomerdarium Oorschot, isolated from guano and nitrogen-rich soils in caves (Zeller 1966;Ajello et al 1977;Larcher et al 2003), suggests a convergence of characters in species belonging to different lineages (Nováková and Kolařik 2010).…”

“…ITS and nrLSU sequence alignments were performed with MAFFT v.6 (Katoh and Toh 2008) and manually Guarro et al (2002) and Nováková and Kolařik (2010). Maximum parsimony trees were inferred using heuristic search (random sequence addition, 100 replicates) and branch swapping (Close Neighbour Interchange with search level 3) options of MEGA 4.0 (Tamura et al 2007).…”

Two new Chrysosporium (Onygenaceae, Onygenales) from China

“…Only six new species have been reported in the past 5 years, namely, C. guarroi J. Cabañes & Abarca (Abarca et al 2010), C. speluncarum A. Nováková & M. Kolařík (Nováková & Kolařík 2010), C. longisporum Stchigel, Deanna A. Sutton, Cano & Guarro (Stchigel et al 2013), C. magnasporum Stchigel, Cano, Mac Cormack & Guarro (Crous et al 2013), C. qinghaiense Y.F. Han, J.D.…”