NEW MYCORRHIZAL SPECIES OF ?TRUFFLE-LIKE? AMANITA (BASIDIOMYCOTA) ASSOCIATED WITH NOTHOFAGUS

KAPLAN, ZACHARIE; CAMILLE TRUONG; FRANCISCO KUHAR; SMITH, MATTHEW E.

Punta Arenas

Congreso; VIII SOUTHERN CONNECTION CONGRESS; 2016

SOUTHERN CONNECTION

The transoceanic distribution of Nothofagus forest in the Southern Hemisphere represents an exampleof isolation by contiental drift after the split of the Gondwanan supercontinent. Nothofagus roots areassociated with a diverse community of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi that facilitate the degradation oforganic matter and the mobilization of essential nutrients to the plant. The question remains whether theseECM fungi also originated in Gondwana or if they migrated via other means ? e.g. long distance sporedispersal or through the Panama land bridge with North America. Amanita are widespread ECM fungi thatcan have fruiting bodies aboveground or belowground (?truffle-like?). We report for the first time a newspecies of truffle-like Amanita from Nothofagus forests of northern Patagonia. We extracted DNA fromfruiting bodies and constructed a phylogeny based on ribosomal 18S, 28S, ITS as well as mitochondrial16S and 26S loci. Our results support the placement of this new species in the same lineage as trufflelikeAmanita species from Australia and New Zealand with similar morphological features, such as thepresence of oil droplets in spores and tissues. This suggests the Gondwanan origin of this ECM lineageand subsequent species diversification by isolation on their respective landmasses.