CIM Seminar with Anna Rosling

Abstract
Globally, around 140,000 fungal species have been described, however these are predicted to represent less than one tenth of the true fungal diversity. Many of the undescribed fungi are known only from studies using amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA (eDNA). One prominent representative of unknown fungal diversity is the class Archaeorhizomycetes, likely one of the quantitatively most overlooked groups of fungi in the boreal ecosystem. Global species estimates range from 500 to over 16 000 depending on data and clustering methods used. Irrespective of the actual species richness, the two species that have been cultured, formally described and named, Archaeorhizomycesborealis Menkis, T. James & Roslingand Archaeorhizomycesfinlayi Rosling & T. James, certainly represent only a fraction of the true diversity in the class. The lack of names for common species is a major limitation to communication and progress in mycology and environmental microbiology at large. A current challenge to fungal taxonomy is to develop strategies for taxonomic resolution of species known only from complex environmental samples.

Sequences representing taxa in the class Archaeorhizomycetes are both abundant and diverse in soil metabarcoding studies from across the globe, but more so in studies from the boreal region. Due to the lack of described species in this class we have no comprehensive knowledge about the spatial and ecological distribution of these fungi. In the seminar I will present a case study using integrative taxonomic strategies for species recognition based on sequence and distribution data. Such approach has the potential to accelerate species discovery by developing systematic statistical learning from extensive global eDNA data recourses available from over two decades of metabarcoding of global fungal diversity.

Registration
Register to the event here. The registration closes January 16.