Revealing the hidden diversity of marine fungi in Portugal with the description of two novel species, Neoascochyta fuci sp. nov. and Paraconiothyrium salinum sp. nov.

Abstract

Fungi are ubiquitous organisms with a wide distribution in almost all ecosystems, including marine environments. Coastal and estuarine ecosystems remain poorly unexplored as fungal habitats, potentially harbouring a hidden diversity with important ecological roles. During an extensive survey of marine fungi in coastal and estuarine Portuguese environments, a collection of 612 isolates was obtained from water, algae, sponges and driftwood. From these, 282 representative isolates were selected through microsatellite-primed PCR (MSP-PCR) fingerprinting analysis, which were identified based on DNA sequence data. The collection yielded 117 taxa from 38 distinct genera, which were identified using DNA sequence analysis. Overall, fungal community composition varied with host/substrate, but the most abundant taxa in the collection were Cladosporium cladosporioides, Penicillium terrigenum, Penicillium brevicompactum and Fusarium equiseti/incarnatum complex. The occurrence of a high fungal diversity harbouring novel species was disclosed. Through a multilocus phylogeny based on ITS, tub2 and tef1-α sequences, in conjunction with morphological and physiological data, we propose Neoascochyta fuci sp. nov. and Paraconiothyrium salinum sp. nov.

Diversity of fungi associated with macroalgae from an estuarine environment and description of Cladosporium rubrum sp. nov. and Hypoxylon aveirense sp. nov.

“…The closest sequences were then used in sequence alignment to determine the taxonomic affiliation of the isolates in a multilocus sequence analysis approach. Sequences were aligned with ClustalX version 2.0 [21] using the parameters described in Gonçalves et al [6]. All alignments were verified and edited using BioEdit Sequence Alignment Editor version 7.2.5 [22].…”

“…Nearest-neighbourinterchange was used as the heuristic method for tree inference with 1000 bootstrap replicates. Maximum-parsimony analyses were performed with PAUP version 4.0b10 [24] according to Gonçalves et al [6]. Bayesian inference was performed using Mr. Bayes version 3.0b4 [25] according to Gonçalves et al [6].…”

“…Maximum-parsimony analyses were performed with PAUP version 4.0b10 [24] according to Gonçalves et al [6]. Bayesian inference was performed using Mr. Bayes version 3.0b4 [25] according to Gonçalves et al [6]. The sequences generated in this study were deposited in GenBank and taxonomic novelties in MycoBank.…”

“…Within Dothideomycetes, other genera were found, such as Epicoccum, Paraphaeosphaeria, Neptunomyces, Stagonospora, Neocamarosporium, Periconia, Alternaria, Paradendryphiella and Stemphylium. The high abundance of Dothideomycetes has been reported in the marine environment [6,8] and many authors reported that this group of fungi may have evolved recently in the sea from terrestrial species, maintaining an active mechanism of spore dispersal [32]. Recently, Gonçalves et al [33] described the species Neptunomyces aureus, found in association with different algae in Ria de Aveiro.…”

“…In this context, despite the fact that macroalgae are abundant in well-lit coastal environments and seem to harbour a high fungal diversity, few diversity studies of their mycobiota are available. Recent studies include Gonçalves et al [6], which lists 46 taxa, mainly found in Fucus and Ulva species on the Portuguese coast, Garzoli et al [7], which lists 134 taxa on 20 thalli of the brown alga Padina pavonica, and Gnavi et al [8] which detected 64 fungal taxa in the green alga Flabellia petiolata on the Italian coast. The fungal community in macroalgae can be influenced by biotic and abiotic factors [9], such as the production of antifungal compounds by the host [2], salinity, water levels and air exposure [10,11].…”