Authors:

Bryan Reyes

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About Paper:

Leotiomycetes are a class of ecologically important fungi belonging to the phylum Ascomycota. They play a large role in plant mycorrhizal relationships, and, within aquatic ecosystems, they are important decomposers of organic litter. Although there are more than 75 recognized species in aquatic environments, the taxonomy of aquatic Leotiomycetes remains unresolved. Most aquatic Leotiomycetes species produce tetraradiate, helical, or highly-branched spores. Therefore, this study focuses on collecting spores from foam, organic litter, soil, and water samples from five aquatic sites - a large lake, a large river, a marsh, a pond, and a small stream - across the state of Indiana to isolate and culture Leotiomycetes from their spores. Samples were transported on ice and the organic litter was submerged in moist chambers to induce sporulation. Spores visualized under the microscope were transferred onto 2% malt extract agar and incubated in the dark at 18-20?. Approximately 40 pure isolates were obtained and their identity will be ascertained by sequencing similarity of the Internal Transcribed Spacer region (the fungal barcode locus) using blastn analysis against the NCBI GenBank database. In addition, 10 environmental samples were submitted for environmental sequencing (NGS) to assess the potential unculturable Leotiomycetes species. This research will provide additional sequences for aquatic Leotiomycetes species that can contribute to the resolution of relationships within the genera and class. Keywords: Fungi; Spores; Taxonomy

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Bryan Reyes