Abstract
Atheliales (Agaricomycetes, Basidiomycota) is an order mostly composed of corticioid fungi, containing roughly 100 described species in 20 genera. Members exhibit remarkable ecological diversity, including saprotrophs, ectomycorrhizal symbionts, facultative parasites of plants or lichens, and symbionts of termites. Ectomycorrhizal members are well known because they often form a major part of boreal and temperate fungal communities. However, Atheliales is generally understudied, and molecular data are scarce. Furthermore, the order is riddled with many taxonomic problems; some genera are non-monophyletic and several species have been shown to be more closely related to other orders. We investigated the phylogenetic position of genera that are currently listed in Atheliales sensu lato by employing an Agaricomycetes-wide dataset with emphasis on Atheliales including the type species of genera therein. A phylogenetic analysis based on 5.8S, LSU, rpb2, and tef1 (excluding third codon) retrieved Atheliales in subclass Agaricomycetidae, as sister to Lepidostromatales. In addition, a number of Atheliales genera were retrieved in other orders with strong support: Byssoporia in Russulales, Digitatispora in Agaricales, Hypochnella in Polyporales, Lyoathelia in Hymenochaetales, and Pteridomyces in Trechisporales. Based on this result, we assembled another dataset focusing on the clade with Atheliales sensu stricto and representatives from Lepidostromatales and Boletales as outgroups, based on ITS (ITS1–5.8S–ITS2), LSU, rpb2, and tef1. The reconstructed phylogeny of Atheliales returned five distinct lineages, which we propose here as families. Lobulicium, a monotypic genus with a distinct morphology of seven-lobed basidiospores, was placed as sister to the rest of Atheliales. A new family is proposed to accommodate this genus, Lobuliciaceae fam. nov. The remaining four lineages can be named following the family-level classification by Jülich (1982), and thus we opted to use the names Atheliaceae, Byssocorticiaceae, Pilodermataceae, and Tylosporaceae, albeit with amended circumscriptions.
Highlights
Atheliales Jülich (1982) is a fungal order in the subclass Agaricomycetidae, class Agaricomycetes, phylum Basidiomycota (Hibbett et al, 2007; Wijayawardene et al, 2020)
Our results showed that Pteridomyces (type: P. galzinii (Bres.) Jülich) should be placed in Trechisporales and Lyoathelia (type: L. laxa (Burt) Hjortstam & Ryvarden) in Hymenochaetales (Fig. 3)
The resulting topology of our four-locus Agaricomycetes dataset (Fig. 3) lacked support on several deep nodes, it is largely congruent with previous studies (Binder et al, 2010; Chen et al, 2019; Hodkinson et al, 2014; Liu et al, 2018; Nagy et al, 2015; Sjo€kvist et al, 2014; Zhao et al, 2017)
Summary
Atheliales Jülich (1982) is a fungal order in the subclass Agaricomycetidae, class Agaricomycetes, phylum Basidiomycota (Hibbett et al, 2007; Wijayawardene et al, 2020). Unlike most other orders within the extremely diverse Agaricomycetes, members of. New taxa are being added from Europe (Duhem, 2013; Kotiranta et al, 2011), and from Argentina (Gorjon et al, 2012), Chile (Gorjon and Hallenberg, 2013), Bhutan (Dhingra and Singh, 2018), and India (Singh et al, 2010; Prasher, 2015)
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