Abstract
Our understanding of fungal diversity is far from complete. Species descriptions generally focus on morphological features, but this approach may underestimate true diversity. Using the morphological species concept, Hesperomyces virescens (Ascomycota, Laboulbeniales) is a single species with global distribution and wide host range. Since its description 120 years ago, this fungal parasite has been reported from 30 species of ladybird hosts on all continents except Antarctica. These host usage patterns suggest that H. virescens could be made up of many different species, each adapted to individual host species. Using sequence data from three gene regions, we found evidence for distinct clades within Hesperomyces virescens, each clade corresponding to isolates from a single host species. We propose that these lineages represent separate species, driven by adaptation to different ladybird hosts. Our combined morphometric, molecular phylogenetic and ecological data provide support for a unified species concept and an integrative taxonomy approach.
Highlights
What is a species? This is a perennial question in evolutionary biology
We only considered ratios for principal component analysis (PCA) to focus on shape rather than natural variation in absolute size
Statistical processing of these ratios revealed two principal components (PCs) that together accounted for 81.54% of the observed variation in thallus morphology of H. virescens between C. propinqua, H. axyridis and O. v-nigrum
Summary
What is a species? This is a perennial question in evolutionary biology. The answer is complex and has been intensely argued for decades. Taylor and colleagues[8], using a large fungal dataset from a boreal ecosystem with well-established plant diversity, suggested up to 6 million species of fungi as a global estimate. Three species were described within the ant-parasitic Ophiocordyceps unilateralis species complex (Ascomycota, Hypocreales) based on the combination of molecular, micro-morphological and ecological (host specificity) data[17]. All this is in line with de Queiroz’s (2007) view[3] that multiple properties provide evidence for lineage separation, that is, divergence of populations, and, speciation
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