Abstract
Fungal communities play a crucial role in maintaining the health of managed and natural soil environments, which directly or indirectly affect the properties of plants and other soil inhabitants. As part of a Citizen Science Project initiated by the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute and the Utrecht University Museum, which aimed to describe novel fungal species from Dutch garden soil, the diversity of Didymellaceae, which is one of the largest families in the Dothideomycetes was investigated. A preliminary analysis of the ITS and LSU sequences from the obtained isolates allowed the identification of 148 strains belonging to the family. Based on a multi-locus phylogeny of a combined ITS, LSU, rpb2 and tub2 alignment, and morphological characteristics, 20 different species were identified in nine genera, namely Ascochyta, Calophoma, Didymella, Juxtiphoma, Nothophoma, Paraboeremia, Phomatodes, Stagonosporopsis, and Xenodidymella. Several isolates confirmed to be ubiquitous plant pathogens or endophytes were for the first time identified from soil, such as Ascochyta syringae, Calophoma clematidis-rectae, and Paraboeremia litseae. Furthermore, one new genus and 12 novel species were described from soil: Ascochyta benningiorumsp. nov., Didymella degraaffiaesp. nov., D. kooimaniorumsp. nov., Juxtiphoma kolkmaniorumsp. nov., Nothophoma brennandiaesp. nov., Paraboeremia rekkerisp. nov., P. truiniorumsp. nov., Stagonosporopsis stuijvenbergiisp. nov., S. weymaniaesp. nov., Vandijckomycella joseaegen. nov. et sp. nov., V. snoekiaesp. nov., and Xenodidymella weymaniaesp. nov. From the results of this study, soil was revealed to be a rich substrate for members of Didymellaceae, several of which were previously known only from diseased or apparently healthy plant hosts.
Highlights
Due to high plasticity and the capacity to adapt and survive in adverse or unfavourable conditions, fungi are exceedingly successful soil inhabitants (Frąc et al 2018)
The phylogenetic trees obtained with three analyses showed a similar topology and were congruent with each other, and only the ML tree is presented with bootstrap analysis (BS), posterior probability (PP), and PBS values plotted on the branches (Figure 1)
As part of the project, we focused on investigating species diversity of Didymellaceae from soil samples obtained in the Netherlands
Summary
Due to high plasticity and the capacity to adapt and survive in adverse or unfavourable conditions, fungi are exceedingly successful soil inhabitants (Frąc et al 2018). The majority of the fungal species presently known can survive in, or directly adapt to, the soil environment (Bridge and Spooner 2001; Botha 2011). Most fungal taxa found in the soil are continuously present in the environment as harmless saprobic organisms, but some play a negative role. Some fungi reside in soil in the form of propagules to survive in an unsuitable environment, posing a long-term threat to other inhabitants (Maryani et al 2019)
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