Taxonomy of Aspergillus section Petersonii sect. nov encompassing indoor and soil-borne species with predominant tropical distribution
Abstrakt
During mould surveys a number of Aspergillus strains were isolated from environmental air which did not fit any known species of the genus. They showed phenotypic as well as molecular genetic similarity with A. arenarius, A. arenarioides and A. peyronelii, three species without clear phylogenetic position.
Multi-gene phylogenetic analysis comprising taxa across the subgenus Circumdati showed that these species cluster into a well-supported clade sister to sect. Candidi.
We propose the status of a new section for this clade, sect. Petersonii sect. nov.
The phenotypic descriptions after 14 days on 8 various agar media were provided for members of sect. Petersonii which, together with maximum growth temperature and molecular genetic data from four loci (ITS rDNA, beta-tubulin, calmodulin and RPB2) supported the recognition of four species.
Two species are newly described here as A. asclerogenus sp. nov. and A. petersonii sp. nov. Aspergillus arenarius is reduced to synonymy with A. peyronelii, a species revived and typified in this study.
A dichotomous key based on the combination of morphology and physiology is provided for all recognized species of sect. Petersonii.
In addition, other species from subg. Circumdati with ambiguous phylogenetic position based on previous studies were also included in our analysis resulting in the proposal of sections Robusti and Tanneri.
All newly proposed sections also have strong phenotypic support.