Abstract
A survey of the fynbos biome in South Africa resulted in the isolation of 61 Penicillium species from Protea repens infructescences, air, and soil samples. Fourteen of these belong to Penicillium sect. Exilicaulis and therefore we considered it an opportunity to re-evaluate the taxonomy of the section. Phylogenetic comparisons of the ITS, β-tubulin, calmodulin and RPB2 gene regions of the 76 section Exilicaulis species, revealed 52 distinct species, including nine new species from fynbos. Morphological comparisons confirmed the novelty for most of these, however, new species closely related to P. rubefaciens did not show significant or consistent morphological differences and we thus placed a bias on phylogenetic data applying the Genealogical Concordance Phylogenetic Species Recognition (GCPSR) concept. In this paper we describe the nine new species and update the accepted species list and resolve synonyms in the section. Importantly, we reveal that P. citreosulfuratum is the correct name for the clade previously considered to represent P. toxicarium fide Serra et al. (2008). The nine new species are: Penicillium atrolazulinum, P. consobrinum, P. cravenianum, P. hemitrachum, P. pagulum, P. repensicola, P. momoii, P. subturcoseum, and P. xanthomelinii spp. nov.
Highlights
Pitt (1980) introduced the name Penicillium sect
Strains belonging to the section were sorted into morpho-groups based on colony characters on Czapek yeast autolysate agar (CYA) and malt extract agar (MEA), with a subset of strains from each group subseTuently seTuenced and compared with reference seTuences
Using four genes and applying Genealogical Concordance Phylogenetic Species Recognition (GCPSR), we accept 43 of these species and introduce nine new species isolated from the fynbos biome in South Africa
Summary
Pitt (1980) introduced the name Penicillium sect. Exilicaulis, typi¿ed by P. restrictum, for species with monoverticillate conidiophores and non-vesiculated stipes. Exilicaulis, stressing the importance of applying the Genealogical Concordance Phylogenetic Species Recognition (GCPSR) concept (Taylor et al 2000) to Penicillium This approach to species delineation has become standard in Penicillium, especially in studies focused on resolving the taxonomy of speci¿c sections (Houbraken & Samson 2011, Houbraken et al 2011, 2014, Peterson et al 2011, Rivera & Seifert 2011, Visagie et al 2013). This concept was applied in section Exilicaulis, but the focus was mostly on a subset of species from the P. parvum-clade (Langlois et al 2014, Peterson et al 1999, 2011) and the P. citreonigrum complex (Serra et al 2008), but did not include all species belonging to these clades
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