First Description of Akanthomyces uredinophilus comb. nov. from Hemipteran Insects in America

MANFRINO, ROMINA; GUTIERREZ, ALEJANDRA; DIEZ DEL VALLE, FLAVIA; SCHUSTER, CHRISTINA; BEN GHARSA, HAIFA; LÓPEZ LASTRA, CLAUDIA; LECLERQUE, ANDREAS

Diversity

MDPI

Año: 2022 vol. 14

Filamentous fungi of the genera Lecanicillium and Akanthomyces (Ascomycota: Hypocreales:Cordycipitaceae) have been isolated from a variety of insect orders and are of particular interestas biological control agents for phloem-sucking plant pests. Three aphid- and whitefly-pathogenicfungal strains that had been isolated from naturally infected Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Myzuspersicae in Argentina were assigned to the species Lecanicillium uredinophilum by combined analysesof morphology and ITS, LSU, EF1A, RPB1 and RPB2-based molecular taxonomy, giving rise to boththe first description of this fungus from hemipteran insects and its first report from outside SouthEast Asia, especially from the American continent. A combination of phylogenetic reconstructionand analysis of pair-wise sequence similarities demonstrated that—reflecting recent changes in thesystematics of Cordycipitaceae—the entire species L. uredinophilum should be transferred to the genusAkanthomyces. Consequently, the introduction of a new taxon, Akanthomaces uredinophilus comb. nov.,was proposed. Moreover, extensive data mining for cryptic A. uredinophilus sequences revealed that(i) the fungus is geographically widely distributed, including earlier unrecognized isolations fromfurther American countries such as the USA, Mexico, and Colombia, and (ii) entomopathogenic andmycoparasitic lifestyles are predominant in this species.