Asexual and sexual morphs of Moesziomyces revisited

• Published in: IMA fungus 2017-06, Vol.8 (1), p.117-129
• Main Authors: Kruse, Julia, Doehlemann, Gunther, Kemen, Eric, Thines, Marco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Asexuality; Biological control; Fungi; Host range; Names; Pathogenicity; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Smut; Species
• ISSN: 2210-6340; 2210-6359; 2210-6359
• DOI: 10.5598/imafungus.2017.08.01.09

Yeasts of the now unused asexually typified genus belong to the smut fungi ( ) and are mostly believed to be apathogenic asexual yeasts derived from smut fungi that have lost pathogenicity on plants. However, phylogenetic studies have shown that most species are phylogenetically close to smut fungi parasitic to plants, suggesting that some of the species might represent adventitious isolations of the yeast morph of otherwise plant pathogenic smut fungi. However, there are some species, such as (syn. ) that are isolated throughout the world and sometimes are also found in clinical samples and do not have a known plant pathogenic sexual morph. In this study, it is revealed by phylogenetic investigations that isolates of the biocontrol agent are interspersed with sexual lineages, suggesting conspecificity. This raises doubts regarding the apathogenic nature of asexual morphs previously placed in , but suggests that there might also be pathogenic sexual morph counterparts for those species known only from asexual morphs. The finding that several additional species currently only known from their yeast morphs are embedded within the genus , suggests that the yeast morph might play a more dominant role in this genus as compared to other genera of . In addition, phylogenetic reconstructions demonstrated that has a narrow host range and that some previously described but not widely used species names should be applied for on other host genera than .