Abstract
Thailand is known to be a part of what is called the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, hosting a vast array of organisms across its diverse ecosystems. This is reflected by the increasing number of new species described over time, especially fungi. However, a very few fungal species from the specialized spider-parasitic genus Gibellula have ever been reported from this region. A survey of invertebrate-pathogenic fungi in Thailand over several decades has led to the discovery of a number of fungal specimens with affinities to this genus. Integration of morphological traits into multi-locus phylogenetic analysis uncovered four new species: G. cebrennini, G. fusiformispora, G. pigmentosinum, and G. scorpioides. All these appear to be exclusively linked with torrubiella-like sexual morphs with the presence of granulomanus-like asexual morph in G. pigmentosinum and G. cebrennini. A remarkably high host specificity of these new species towards their spider hosts was revealed, and for the first time, evidence is presented for manipulation of host behavior in G. scorpioides.
Highlights
To arthropodologists or even arachnologists, it is surprising that fungal pathogens of spiders seem to be generally neglected when the host can be completely overgrown by the pathogens to be unrecognizable as a spider
The combined data set of 43 taxa (Table 1) comprised 4,325 characters including 680, 859, 917, 1,109 and 917 characters derived from internal transcribed spacer (ITS), LSU, translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF1), RPB1 and RPB2, respectively with Engyodontium aranearum as the outgroup
G. pigmentosinum distinctly differs from G. pulchra in having a granulomanus-like conidial state
Summary
To arthropodologists or even arachnologists, it is surprising that fungal pathogens of spiders seem to be generally neglected when the host can be completely overgrown by the pathogens to be unrecognizable as a spider. Gibellula is well-known to be a specialized spider-parasitic genus widely distributed worldwide, mostly found in tropical regions (Shrestha et al 2019). In addition to these species, the identities of several other species reported in this genus still remain doubtful. Since Gibellula is well-known as an obligate parasite of spiders, Mains (1950) reported that the assignment of G. elegans Henn. Gibellula petchii Humber & Rombach was proposed to accommodate Cylindrophora aranearum Petch, which was originally described as the conidial state of Torrubiella albolanata Petch and later elevated to generic rank as a new genus, Granulomanus de Hoog &
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