Abstract
The mucoralean genus Backusella comprises saprobe species commonly isolated from soil and leaf litter but also from wood, invertebrates, and toads. Molecular species recognition of Backusella has been mainly based on the ITS and LSU regions. Because mucoralean fungi tend to have high intraspecific variability of ITS sequences, we established the gene encoding the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB1) as phylogenetic marker in Backusella. The topologies of the ITS/LSU and RPB1 trees were widely similar. The maximum growth temperature is shown to represent a valuable taxonomic feature because it varied strongly within the genus. Seven Backusella spp. are capable of growing at temperatures ≥ 36 °C, four of which were positioned in a same clade. Based on the evidence of molecular phylogenetic analyses as well as on morphological and physiological (maximum growth temperature) features, Backusella gigaspora sp. nov. and B. pernambucensis sp. nov. are described.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The datasets generated during the current study (ITS, LSU rDNA, and RPB1 sequences) are available in the GenBank repository.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Andrew Urquhart and Alexander Idnurm for providing FASTA alignments for the LSU and the ITS sequences of the Australian Backusella spp. Grit Walther thanks Carmen Karkowski and Philipp Hupel for excellent technical assistance.
Funding
We thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for providing a scholarship for Cordeiro, T.R.L., and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvilvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for providing a research grant to Santiago, A.L.C.M.A. We also thank Dr. José Luiz Bezerra for his help with nomenclature of the species. This work was also supported in part by the Graduate Program for the Undiscovered Taxa of Korea funded by NIBR of the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of Korea and in part by the Basic Science Research Program (2022R1I1A3068645) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education.
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Material preparation, soil collection, fungus isolation, and morphological description were performed by Thalline Rafhaella Leite Cordeiro, Carlos Alberto Fragoso de Souza, Diogo Xavier Lima, Grit Walther, and André Luiz Cabral Monteiro de Azevedo Santiago. DNA extraction and molecular analyses were performed by Grit Walther, Thalline Rafhaella Leite Cordeiro, Rafael José Vilela de Oliveira, Aristóteles Góes-Neto, Thuong Thuong Thi Nguyen, Luiz Marcelo Robeiro Tomé, and Hyang Burm Lee. The English was reviewed by Hyang Burm Lee. The Tmax of specimens was determined by Grit Walther, Thalline Rafhaella Leite Cordeiro, and Hyang Burm Lee. The figures were arranged by Thalline Rafhaella Leite Cordeiro and André Luiz Cabral Monteiro de Azevedo Santiago. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Thalline Rafhaella Leite Cordeiro, Grit Walther, André Luiz Cabral Monteiro de Azevedo Santiago, and Hyang Burm Lee, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.
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Cordeiro, T.R.L., Walther, G., Lee, H.B. et al. A polyphasic approach to the taxonomy of Backusella reveals two new species. Mycol Progress 22, 16 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-023-01864-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-023-01864-x