Abstract
Rock-inhabiting fungi (RIF) are nonlichenized fungi that naturally colonize rock surfaces and subsurfaces. The extremely slow growth rate and lack of distinguishing morphological characteristics of RIF resulted in a poor understanding on their biodiversity. In this study, we surveyed RIF colonizing historical stone monuments and natural rock formations from throughout China. Among over 1000 isolates, after preliminary delimitation using the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) sequences, representative isolates belonging to Trichomeriaceae and Herpotrichiellaceae were selected for a combined analysis of ITS and the nuclear ribosomal large subunit (nucLSU) to determine the generic placements. Eight clades representing seven known genera and one new genus herein named as Anthracina were placed in Trichomeriaceae. While, for Herpotrichiellaceae, two clades corresponded to two genera: Cladophialophora and Exophiala. Fine-scale phylogenetic analyses using combined sequences of the partial actin gene (ACT), ITS, mitochondrial small subunit ribosomal DNA (mtSSU), nucLSU, the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB1), small subunit of nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (SSU), translation elongation factor (TEF), and β-tubulin gene (TUB) revealed that these strains represented 11 and 6 new species, respectively, in Trichomeriaceae and Herpotrichiellaceae. The 17 new species were described, illustrated for their morphologies and compared with similar taxa. Our study demonstrated that the diversity of RIF is surprisingly high and still poorly understood. In addition, a rapid strategy for classifying RIF was proposed to determine the generic and familial placements through preliminary ITS and nucLSU analyses, followed by combined analyses of five loci selected from ACT, ITS, mtSSU, nucLSU, RPB1, and/or the second subunit of RNA polymerase II gene (RPB2), SSU, TEF, and TUB regions to classify RIF to the species level.
Highlights
Natural and manmade rock surfaces harbor a high diversity of lichenized and nonlichenized fungi, algae, and bacteria [1,2,3]
The phylogenic tree based on a combined sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) and nuclear ribosomal large subunit (nucLSU) indicated that the selected 47 isolates were distributed among 11 independent clades, of which six are from
We propose a new genus, Anthracina, for clade G and describe the morphological characteristics of two new species in the genus (Figure 2)
Summary
Natural and manmade rock surfaces harbor a high diversity of lichenized and nonlichenized fungi, algae, and bacteria [1,2,3]. This niche harbors a polyphyletic assemblage of stress-tolerant. The term rock-inhabiting fungi (RIF) used in recent phylogenetic analyses encompasses their heterogeneity and varied functional and ecophysiological attributes [4,5,6]. These fungi were first recognized as components of the microbiota of desert rock and lithotrophic Antarctic rock niches [7]
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