Abstract
Studies have demonstrated that many cosmopolitan species actually consist of divergent clades that present high levels of morphological stasis throughout their evolutionary histories. Phallus indusiatus s.l. has been described as a circum-tropical species. However, this distribution may actually reflect the lack of taxonomic resolution due to the small number of diagnostic morphological characters, which leads to the identification of new records as populations of P. indusiatus. Here, we examine the diversity of P. indusiatus-like species in Brazilian Amazonia. We show a clear congruence between detailed morphological data and ITS, nuc-LSU and atp6 based phylogenetic analyses and three new species are described within the Brazilian indusiate clade. These results highlight the importance of more detailed investigation, with the inclusion of molecular information, in Neotropical fungi.
Highlights
The worldwide distribution of fungal species hypotheses has been questioned by modern molecular analyses
A total of 19 recently collected specimens of Phallus spp. with white indusium were studied, 15 of which were collected in Brazilian Amazonia, while four other specimens were collected from the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest (SP and UFRN-Fungos herbaria) (Figure 1)
Our results suggest that a great number of species might be hidden within the circum-tropical P. indusiatus species concept, since the sequence data obtained from GenBank are clearly polyphyletic with different relationships with other Phallus species (Figures 2, 3)
Summary
The worldwide distribution of fungal species hypotheses has been questioned by modern molecular analyses. Studies have demonstrated that many cosmopolitan species consist of divergent clades that present high levels of morphological stasis. The current distribution of P. indusiatus may reflect the lack of taxonomic resolution due to the small number of diagnostic morphological characters, which leads to the identification of new records as populations of P. indusiatus. The insect-dependent mechanism of spore dispersal may have played an important role in determining the current distribution of P. indusiatus
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