Digging Up the Roots: Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Disentanglements in Corticiaceae s.s. (Corticiales, Basidiomycota) and Evolution of Nutritional Modes

Abstract

Corticiaceae is one of the traditional families of the Agaricomycetes and served for a long time as a convenient placement for basidiomycetes with a resupinate, corticioid form of fruiting body. Molecular studies have helped to assign many corticioid fungi to diverse families and orders; however, Corticiaceae still lacks a phylogenetic characterization and modern circumscription. Here, we provide the first comprehensive phylogenetic and taxonomic revision of the family Corticiaceae based on extensive type studies and sequences of nLSU, ITS, IGS, nSSU, and mtSSU regions. Our analyses support the recognition of ten monophyletic genera in the Corticiaceae, and show that nutritional mode is not a robust basis for generic delimitations in the family. The genus Mycobernardia and the species Corticium thailandicum, Erythricium vernum, and Marchandiomyces allantosporus are described as new to science, and five new combinations are proposed. Moreover, ancestral character state reconstruction revealed that saprotrophy is the plesiomorphic nutritional mode in the Corticiaceae, while several transitions have occurred to diverse nutritional modes in this family. Identification keys are provided to the genera in Corticiaceae s.s. as well as to the species in Corticium, Erythricium, Laetisaria, and Marchandiomyces.

Dendrocorticiopsis orientalis gen. et sp. nov. of the Punctulariaceae (Corticiales, Basidiomycota) revealed by molecular data

“…The ML tree (Fig. 1 ) shows the four highly supported families also recovered in previous studies ( Ghobad-Nejhad and Duhem 2014 ; Ariyawansa et al 2015 ; Ghobad-Nejhad et al 2021 ; Guan et al 2021 ). The four samples of the new species Dendrocorticiopsis orientalis formed a monophyletic group in Punctulariaceae with strong support values ( BS = 100%; PP = 1), well separated from the other genera, viz., Dendrocorticium , Punctularia , and Punctulariopsis (Fig.…”

“…is a small order of corticioid fungi with four families: Corticiaceae Herter, Dendrominiaceae Ghobad-Nejhad, Punctulariaceae Donk, and Vuilleminiaceae Maire ex Lotsy. The members of the order show a variety of nutritional ecologies, including lignicolous saprobes, foliicolous species, plant pathogens, and lichenicolous species ( Ghobad-Nejhad et al 2010 , 2021 ). Species of Punctulariaceae are mainly saprobic on angiosperm trees, causing white rot.…”

Resources of Iranian agarics (Basidiomycota) with an outlook on their antioxidant potential

“…Posterior probabilities (PPs) were calculated from the posterior distribution of the retained trees. Maximum likelihood analyses were executed in raxmlGUI v.1.3 ( Silvestro and Michalak, 2010 ) with the same parameters as used by Ghobad-Nejhad et al (2021) . The Bayesian phylograms were retained for tree visualizations and annotations.…”

Microbial consortia driving lignocellulose transformation in agricultural woodchip bioreactors

“…These findings are similar to prior studies on woodchip bioreactors 9,11 , with the exception of Heliotales which could not be detected in this study. Fungal species from the classes Chaetosphaeriales and Coniochaetales have been previously found in freshwaters 44,45 , while Sporidiobolales 46 , and Corticiales 47 have been detected in association with plants 46,47 .…”