Five novel anamorphic, ascomycetous yeast species associated with mushrooms and soil

Abstract

Five novel yeast species belonging to the Kodamaea clade are proposed in this paper based on nine strains isolated from mushrooms and soil in Taiwan between 2007 and 2008. These nine yeast strains were found to represent five novel yeast species based on their D1/D2 domain sequences of the large subunit (LSU) rRNA gene and physiological characteristics. Sequence analysis of the D1/D2 domain of the LSU rRNA gene revealed that the five species are phylogenetically related to Kodamaea and Candida sp. clustered into the Kodamaea clade in the phylogenetic tree. All the species reproduced asexually, and no ascospores could be found. Therefore, the scientific names of Candida alishanica sp. nov., Candida hsintzibuensis sp. nov., Candida kaohsiungensis sp. nov., Candida lidongshanica sp. nov., and Candida smagusa sp. nov. were proposed to accommodate these strains. Strains of the first species were discovered from soil; two strains of the second species were isolated from soil and the fruiting body of a mushroom, respectively; and strains of the latter three species were recovered from fruiting bodies of mushrooms. The type strains are listed as follows: C. alishanica GY43S11(T) (=CBS 11429(T) =BCRC 23188(T) ); C. hsintzibuensis EJ7S06(T) (=CBS 11427(T) =BCRC 23183(T) ); C. kaohsiungensis GJ10M01(T) (=CBS 11435(T) =BCRC 23197(T) ); C. lidongshanica SD5S01(T) (=CBS 11426(T) =BCRC 23191(T) ); and C. smagusa EN4M03(T) (=CBS 11430(T) =BCRC 23186(T) ).