Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor. J. Mycol.)
Indexed in SCOPUS, KCI, DOAJ
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED
pISSN 0253-651X
eISSN 2383-5249
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Molecular Phylogeny and Morphology Reveal the Underestimated Diversity of Mortierella (Mortierellales) in Korea

1Department of Biology, Kunsan National University, Gunsan 54150, Korea
2Center for Convergent Agrobioengineering, Kunsan National University, Gunsan 54150, Korea
3Division of Food Technology, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, Chonnam National University,
Gwangju 61186, Korea

Correspondence to yjchoi@kunsan.ac.kr

Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor J Mycol) December, 2018, 46(4):375-382.
https://doi.org/10.4489/KJM.20180042
Accepted: November 14, 2018; Revised: November 14, 2018; Received: October 22, 2018
Published: December, 2018.
© 2018 THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF MYCOLOGY.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Members of the genus Mortierella (Mortierellales) are filamentous fungi, which are found on nearly all substrates, but more frequently in soil. Till date, 7 species of Mortierella have been reported in Korea, but being a ubiquitous group with high species diversity in temperate zones, this number is still low. During a survey of fungal biodiversity in Korea, we collected many isolates of Mortierella, and through morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses, identified them to be 3 previously unrecorded species, namely, M. chienii, M. epicladia, and M. gamsii. A total of 10 Mortierella species in Korea, including the 3 species reported in the present study, are widely distributed in 5 out of 7 phylogenetic groups of this genus. This indicates that the diversity of Mortierella was so far underestimated in Korea. Multi-locus sequence analysis is required to provide a more reliable backbone for some uncertain phylogenetic groupings and to more clearly define a species of Mortierella, which would encourage deeper research in the diversity and ecological roles of Mortierella and allied genera.

Keywords

Barcoding, ITS rDNA, Mortierellaceae, Species diversity, Zygomycetes

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