Irja Saar

University of Tartu · Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences

Phylogenetic study of Arrhenia peltigerina revealed a complex of seven divergent clades. Type specimens of Agaricus peltigerinus and Omphalina cupulatoides fell into separate clades; the latter was recombined as Arrhenia cupulatoides. Four clades were described as new species: Arr. baltica, Arr. fennoscandica, Arr. mohniensis, and Arr. talpoides; t...

UNITE (https://unite.ut.ee) is a web-based database and sequence management environment for molecular identification of eukaryotes. It targets the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and offers nearly 10 million such sequences for reference. These are clustered into ∼2.4M species hypotheses (SHs), each assigned a unique digit...

A corrigendum on Ferretti A, Saar I, Knijn A (2022) A new species of Agaricus (section Sanguinolenti) from Rome, Italy. Italian Journal of Mycology 51:1-10. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2531-7342/13464

Comparison of the protologue of Agaricus umbellifer L. with specimens and descriptions of the basidiolichen Lichenomphalia umbellifera (L.) Redhead & al. revealed that the epithet umbellifera was misapplied to the Lichenomphalia species, causing several major conflicts with Linnaeus’s species concept. A felicitous match for Linnaeus’s species conce...

We studied the taxonomy of Pluteus podospileus and similar species using morphological and molecular (nrITS, TEF1-α) data, including a detailed study of the type collections of P. inflatus var. alneus, Pluteus minutissimus f. major, and P. granulatus var. tenellus. Within the P. podospileus complex, we phylogenetically confirmed six species in Euro...

Novel species of fungi described in this study include those from various countries as follows: Australia, Aschersonia mackerrasiae on whitefly, Cladosporium corticola on bark of Melaleuca quinquenervia, Penicillium nudgee from soil under Melaleuca quinquenervia, Pseudocercospora blackwoodiae on leaf spot of Persoonia falcata, and Pseudocercospora...

Comparison of the protologue of Agaricus umbellifer L. with specimens and descriptions of the basidiolichen Lichenomphalia umbellifera (L.) Redhead & al. revealed that the epithet umbellifera was grossly misapplied to the basidiolichen, causing several major conflicts with Linnaeus’s species concept. In the region where Linnaeus collected A. umbell...

Fungal species are not immune to the threats facing animals and plants and are thus also prone to extinction. Yet, until 2015, fungi were nearly absent on the IUCN Red List. Recent efforts to identify fungal species under threat have significantly increased the number of published fungal assessments. The 597 species of fungi published in the 2022-1...

Nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacer region ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 (ITS barcode) sequence data from eight type specimens of previously described Squamanita species were obtained. Phylogenetic analysis of ITS and partial nuc 28S rDNA data revealed Squamanita as paraphyletic splitting into two monophyletic groups, which we recognize as the genera Squamanita...

We studied the taxonomy of Pluteus insidiosus and similar species using morphological and molecular (nrITS, TEF1-α) data, including a detailed study of the type collection of P. insidiosus. Based on our results, we recognize five species in this group: P. insidiosus sensu stricto and four other taxa: P. assimilates; P. farensis; P. flavostipitatus;...

Molecular methods are increasingly used to identify species that lack conspicuous macro‐ or micromorphological characters. Taxonomic and ecological research teams barcode large numbers of collected voucher specimens annually. In this study we assessed the efficiency of long‐read high throughput sequencing (HTS) as opposed to the traditionally used...

Molecular studies of sphagnicolous arrhenias in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) revealed four clades in Arrhenia , three obligate (two scaly capped and one smooth-capped) and one facultative (smooth-capped) sphagnophiles. Critical nomenclatural review of 16 names used for omphalinoid sphagnicolous taxa in the past left five suitable to apply to this...

We report the finding of an Agaricus specimen in the section Sanguinolenti and describe it as a new species Agaricus hortusdamarum. Based on ITS data, the species is distinct and well separated from all known se-quenced species within this section. The type specimen grew in late autumn, under Cupressus sempervirens, near a Pinus pinea alley in the...

Molecular studies of sphagnicolous arrhenias in Newfoundland and Labrador created four clades in Arrhenia , three obligate sphagnophiles (two scaly-capped and one smooth-capped) and one facultative (smooth-capped). Nomenclatural review recovered 16 names applied to omphalinoid sphagnicolous taxa in the past. Critical review of these left five as su...

Mushroom‐forming fungi are important sources of food and medicine in many regions of the world, and their development and health are known to depend on various microbes. Recent studies have examined the structure of mushroom‐inhabiting bacterial (MIB) communities and their association with local environmental variables, but global‐scale diversity a...

Novel species of fungi described in this study include those from various countries as follows: Antartica, Cladosporium austrolitorale from coastal sea sand. Australia, Austroboletus yourkae on soil, Crepidotus innuopurpureus on dead wood, Curvularia stenotaphri from roots and leaves of Stenotaphrum secundatum and Thecaphora stajsicii from capsules...

Polyozellus and Pseudotomentella are two genera of closely related, ectomycorrhizal fungi in the order Thelephorales ; the former stipitate and the latter corticioid. Both are widespread in the Northern Hemisphere and many species from both genera seem to be restricted to old growth forest. This study aimed to: a) identify genetic regions useful in...

We report the identification of both Hydnum ibericum and H. ovoideisporum growing in late autumn, in the woods of Monte Rocca Romana, the highest peak (612 m asl) of Monti Sabatini, inside the Bracciano-Martignano Regional Natural Park in Latium, Italy. The Park includes large composite zones: the relatively humid climate and the fertile volcanic s...

A molecular genetic study of the Arrhenia acerosa complex using the ITS fungal barcoding marker revealed unexpected diversity along a cascading group supporting over 20 lineages. Among these, we identified five previously described species: A. acerosa s.str., A. glauca, A. latispora, A. subglobisemen, and Rhodocybe tillii (recombined as A. tillii)....

Here, we describe the taxon hypothesis (TH) paradigm, which covers the construction, identification, and communication of taxa as datasets. Defining taxa as datasets of individuals and their traits will make taxon identification and most importantly communication of taxa precise and reproducible. This will allow datasets with standardized and atomi...

Mushrooms named Gymnopilus spectabilis and G. junonius have been reported widely in North America on both dead hardwood or dead or living conifers. Based on DNA sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) and large ribosomal subunit (LSU), we found that although Gymnopilus junonius (= G. spectabilis s. auct.) is widespread in Europe,...

This study describes four gray or brown species of Cuphophyllus (Hygrophoraceae, Agaricales), two of them new species, restricted to arctic-alpine and northern boreal zones of North America, and relates them morphologically and phylogenetically using multigene and nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacer ITS1-5.8S-ITS (ITS barcode) analyses to their si...

Specimens of Myriostoma coliforme and Battarrea sp. were found in the same habitat in a cypress-aligned alleyway in the town of Trevignano Romano in the province of Rome, Italy. Furthermore, other specimens of M. coliforme were found in the Villa Ada Urban Park in the city of Rome. Species attribution by morphological features is difficult in Myrio...

Pseudoomphalina kalchbrenneri is a Eurasian species. In North America the Pso. kalchbrenneri complex is represented by Pseudoomphalina anticostica sp. nov. and Pso. compressipes in the east and Pso. intermedia in the west. Pseudoomphalina farinacea and Pso. felleoides are later synonyms for Pso. compressipes. The somewhat similar Pseudolaccaria pac...

In 2019 the conservation status of 214 fungal species in Estonia was assessed according to IUCN criteria and an IUCN category was assigned to each taxon. Altogether 94 species were categorized as threatened (CR, EN, VU), 42 least concern (LC), 60 near threatened (NT), three regionally extinct (RE) and six as data deficient (DD). Changes compared to...

Schizophyllum amplum (Agaricales, Schizophyllaceae) is reported for the first time in Malta and Estonia. The collections from Malta were examined morphologically and compared with previously published accounts of this species. The specimens from Estonia and Malta were sequenced after PCR amplification with ITS1F and ITS4 for ITS region. The sequenc...

In this study, further evidences of the presence of the (sub)tropical Punctularia atropurpurascens in Rome are reported. Besides its generally described saprotrophic behaviour, some of the new-found specimens revealed a parasitic ability of the fungus. Moreover, although reputed a quite rare fungal species in Italy, P. atropurpurascens shows great...

UNITE (https://unite.ut.ee/) is a web-based database and sequence management environment for the molecular identification of fungi. It targets the formal fungal barcode-the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region-and offers all ∼1 000 000 public fungal ITS sequences for reference. These are clustered into ∼459 000 species hypothe...

Nomenclatural type definitions are one of the most important concepts in biological nomenclature. Being physical objects that can be re-studied by other researchers, types permanently link taxonomy (an artificial agreement to classify biological diversity) with nomenclature (an artificial agreement to name biological diversity). Two proposals to am...

Polyozellus species

Geographic, morphological and ITS-based molecular review of collections identified as Polyozellus multiplex revealed that it is a complex of five phylogenetic species. Average spore size—either less or more than 7 × 6 µm—splits the complex into a small-spored group of two (P. multiplex and P. atrolazulinus) and a large-spored group of three (P. mar...

Molecular studies have shown the type collection of Omphalina oreades to be conspecific with a small brown basidiolichen from the Appalachian range in Newfoundland, both with 4-spored basidia. Two sequences deposited in GenBank, originally identified as O. grisella , fell in the same clade. Sequences of the type collection of Omphalia grisella , wi...

Species of Russula (Russulaceae), a large, cosmopolitan, ectomycorrhizal fungal genus are notoriously difficult to identify. To delimit species and to evaluate their morphology, we sequenced the ~400 bp ITS2 ribosomal DNA region from 713 Pacific Northwest Russula specimens from Benjamin Woo’s exceptional collection. As a topological constraint for...

An uncommon, small, orange-capped Lactarius Pers. with white latex was confirmed, using molecular studies of the type specimens, to be Lactarius splendens Hesler & A.H. Sm. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the species falls within Lactarius section Deliciosi (Fr.) Redeuilh, Verbeken & Walleyn., very closely related to L. rubrilacteus Hesler & A....

Tricholoma matsutake, known widely as " matsutake, " has great commercial and cultural significance in Japan. Because Japanese production is insufficient to meet the high domestic demand, morphologically similar mushrooms, thought by many to belong to T. magnivelare, are imported from western North America. However, molecular data produced since th...

The steppe morel, Morchella steppicola, is one of the more iconic species of true morels (Morchellaceae, Pezizales) based on its: 1) distinctive cerebriform pileus with densely packed labyrinthine irregular ridges, 2) genealogically exclusive position as the earliest diverging species lineage within the Esculenta clade, and 3) geographic distributi...

Cystoderma carpaticum was collected and originally described from the Carpathians in Poland. Later, it was recombined in the genera Lepiota and Echinoderma. Two recent collections from Croatia allowed for reliable phylogenetic and morphological comparative analyses of this rare fungus, including the holotype specimen. Our results confirmed that thi...

Rhodocybe tugrulii sp. nov. is described based on both morphological and molecular data (analysis of nrITS and nrLSU sequences) from Zigana Mountain, Trabzon, Turkey and Lääne County, Estonia. It is distinguished by the grey to beige or slightly reddish brown basidiomata, a small, convex to hemispheric, cracked pileus surface, decurrent lamellae; a...

Morphologial and molecular studies of the type specimens of five Cystodermella taxa (C. adnatifolia, C. cristallifera, C. lactea, C. myriadocystis, C. cinnabarina f. nogalesii) and Cystoderma castellanum revealed Cystodermella lactea and C. myriadocystis to be synonyms of C. cinnabarina, and Cystoderma castellanum to be a synonym of Cystodermella g...

The study of the type specimens from Coprinus dunarum revealed that according to ITS sequences these specimens belong to the species Coprinopsis atramentaria. Thus, C. dunarum should be treated as a synonym of the latter.

A study of the types of two species of Tricholomopsis described by C. H. Peck, T. flavescens and T. sulphureoides, revealed that their ITS sequences differ clearly from each other and from previously studied European species. The species T. osiliensis described from Estonia is a synonym of T. sulphureoides. Because both type collections were mixed,...

Ectomycorrhizal symbiosis has evolved multiple times in plants and fungi, but the trophic status of certain fungal groups remains poorly understood due to their unculturability or ambiguous interpretation of biotrophic associations. Combining field observations, molecular identification of root tips, synthesis experiments and analysis of stable iso...

The nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region is the formal fungal barcode and in most cases the marker of choice for exploration of fungal diversity in environmental samples. Two problems are particularly acute in the pursuit of satisfactory taxonomic assignment of newly generated ITS sequences: (i) the lack of an inclusive, relia...

Species delimitation in Hymenochaete sensu lato was evaluated based on partial nucLSU rDNA sequences, isoenzyme analyses and morphological data. Analyses of LSU data revealed Hymenochaete sensu stricto and Pseudochaete as distinct monophyletic genera. Transfer of Hydnochaete olivacea into genus Pseudochaete and Dichochaete setosa into genus Hymenoc...

DNA sequences accumulating in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD) form a rich source of information for taxonomic and ecological meta-analyses. However, these databases include many erroneous entries, and the data itself is poorly annotated with metadata, making it difficult to target and extract entries of interest with any degr...

• Compared with Sanger sequencing-based methods, pyrosequencing provides orders of magnitude more data on the diversity of organisms in their natural habitat, but its technological biases and relative accuracy remain poorly understood. • This study compares the performance of pyrosequencing and traditional sequencing for species' recovery of ectomy...

Species delimitation in Cystoderma and Cystodermella was evaluated based on ITS and LSU rDNA sequences as well as morphological data. Two species of Cystoderma are synonymised with C. carcharias and three species with C. jasonis, distinguishing the synonymised taxa as varieties of these accepted species. Analyses of partial LSU rDNA sequences revea...

A new thelephoroid species, Tomentellopsis pulchella, is described from Italy. It is a distinct taxon with yellow to orange hymenium and with small globose spores. According to the rDNA ITS sequences the closest species are T. bresadolana and an undescribed taxon found in Finland. So far T. pulchella is found only in St. Vitale (Italy) pine-forest.

Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) symbiosis is a widespread plant nutrition strategy in Australia, especially in semiarid regions. This study aims to determine the diversity, community structure and host preference of ECM fungi in a Tasmanian wet sclerophyll forest. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were identified based on anatomotyping and rDNA internal transcribed spac...

Cystoderma luteohemisphaericum is revised based on type studies, examination and phylogenetic analysis of recent material from South America. The new combination, Cystolepiota luteohemisphaerica, is proposed. This is the first published record of this species from Ecuador and Brazil

Ectomycorrhizal fungi, especially basidiomycetes, have repeatedly evolved from saprotrophic ancestors. Using rDNA internal transcribed spacer and large subunit sequences, we demonstrate that four species of Coltricia and Coltriciella form ectomycorrhiza with the native Vateriopsis seychellarum (Dipterocarpaceae) and Intsia bijuga (Caesalpiniaceae)...

The results of a study of fungi in the Poruni old-growth forest are reported. Among 456 registered species of fungi 29 are indicators of primeval and old-growth forests. Two fungal species, Junghuhnia pseudozilingiana and Skeletocutis odora, are protected by law and the former belong, together with Eocronartium muscicola and Marasmius wynnei, to th...

Two new agaric species, Cystoderma andinum and C. papallactae are described from high Andean Ecuador.

This paper presents a key and descriptions for 15 species of Cystoderma and Cystodermella. Representative material from Northern, Middle and Eastern Europe and from Asia-Temperate regions of the former Soviet Union was examined and evaluated. Data on the general distribution and remarks on specific features are provided for each species.

Six species of the genus Cystoderma have been found in Estonia: C. adnatifolium, C. amianthinum, C. carcharias, C. granulosum, C. jasonis and C. terreii. Specimens have been collected in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden. Their genome size and ploidy levels were estimated. In this genus three ploidy levels (2x, 3x, 6x) were represented. T...