New species of Auritella (Inocybaceae) from Cameroon, with a worldwide key to the known species

P Brandon Matheny,Olivier Séné,Terry W Henkel,Hailee B Korotkin,M Catherine Aime,Bryn T M Dentinger

doi:10.5598/imafungus.2017.08.02.06

Abstract

Two new species in the genus Auritella (Inocybaceae) are described as new from tropical rainforest in Cameroon. Descriptions, photographs, line drawings, and a worldwide taxonomic key to the described species of Auritella are presented. Phylogenetic analysis of 28S rDNA and rpb2 nucleotide sequence data suggests at least five phylogenetic species that can be ascribed to Auritella occur in the region comprising Cameroon and Gabon and constitute a strongly supported monophyletic subgroup within the genus. Phylogenetic analysis of ITS data supports the conspecificity of numerous collections attributed to the two new species as well as the monophyly of Australian species of Auritella. This work raises the known number of described species of Auritella to thirteen worldwide, four of which occur in tropical Africa, one in tropical India, and eight in temperate and tropical regions of Australia. This is the first study to confirm an ectomycorrhizal status of Auritella using molecular data.

Highlights

Eleven species of the mushroom genus Auritella (Inocybaceae, Agaricales) are currently recognized
The generic name was originally published in 2006 and encompasses taxa discovered in Africa, Australia, and India (Matheny & Bougher 2006a, b, 2017, Matheny et al 2012)
Tropical African and Indian species are distinguished by their typically long stipe, scaly pileus and often scaly stipe surfaces, bright basidiome colours, trichoderm pileipellis, thick-walled cheilocystidia composed of chains of hyphal cells, and occurrence in lowland tropical rainforest

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Eleven species of the mushroom genus Auritella (Inocybaceae, Agaricales) are currently recognized. Phylogenetic analyses of 28S-rRNA, rpb[2] and the ITS gene region are presented, along with morphological descriptions, illustrations, and discussion of the new species relative to other species of Auritella recognized from Africa, India, and Australia. To infer the phylogenetic placement of Auritella species, we assembled separate alignments of 37 28S and 27 rpb[2] DNA sequences from on-going and much more taxonomically inclusive gene datasets in MacClade v4.08a (Maddison & Maddison 2005), including two 28S sequences (JQ657775, JQ657772) produced from Auritella species as “Inocybe” by Tedersoo et al (2012), and one 28S sequence (FR731774) from a caesalpinoid (Fabaceae) ectomycorrhiza (Tedersoo et al 2011) (Table 1). The Afro-tropical A. aureoplumosa formed a strongly supported group with two LQVXI¿FLHQWO\ LGHQWL¿HG *HQ%DQN 6 VHTXHQFHV SURGXFHG

1HZ VSHFLHV RI Auritella

New South Wales Kerala Queensland

Indian lineage

Australian Auritella