Isabel Salcedo

Ectomycorrhizae synthesized between Pinus radiata and eight fungi associated with Pinus spp.

The capability of several fungal species, collected in the field in association with species of the genus Pinus, to form ectomycorrhizae with Pinus radiata have been determinated in vitro and in con- tainers. Hebeloma longicaudum, Russula sanguinea, Tricholoma albobruneum, Tuber borchii and Xerocomus badius have formed ectomycorrhizae with Pinus ra- diata by pure culture synthesis. These species and other three, Boletus pinophilus, Gautieria othii and Scleroderma polyrhizum, have formed ectomycorrhizae in open containers by methods of vegetative mycelial inoculation and spore inoculation. These eight sym- bioses with Pinus radiata have not been previously described.

The cauliflower-like black crusts on sandstones: A natural passive sampler to evaluate the surrounding environmental pollution

Black crust in buildings can be formed as a result of different kind of chemical and physical reactions between the stone surface and environmental factors (e.g. acid aerosols emitted to the atmosphere, airborne particulate matter, etc.). Moreover, biological colonizations can also be present on them. This kind of pathology is widely present in limestones, but fewer are the case study dealing with the characterization of black crusts on sandstones. In this work we present an innovative methodology based on the use of cauliflower-like black crusts formed on sandstone material as natural passive sampler to evaluate the environmental pollution related with the emission of natural (crustal particles and marine aerosol particles) and metallic elements in the airborne particulate matter from the surrounding atmosphere. To illustrate its usefulness, different cauliflower-like black crusts growing in areas protected from the rain growing in an historical construction, La Galea Fortress, made up of sandstone and placed in the Abra Bay (Getxo, Basque Country, Spain) were characterized. This area suffers the anthropogenic emissions coming from the surrounding industry, traffic, sea port, and the natural ones coming from the surrounding marine atmosphere. The applied analytical methodology began with a previous elemental in situ screening in order to evaluate and compare the presence of the metals trapped in black crusts from different orientations using a hand-held energy dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometer. After this preliminary study, samples of black crusts were taken in order to characterize them in the laboratory using molecular techniques (Raman spectroscopy and XRD) and elemental techniques (ICP-MS, SEM-EDS and micro energy dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence). With the last two elemental techniques, imaging analyses were performed at different lateral resolutions in order to observe the distribution of the metals and other kind of particles trapped in the black crust samples. Additionally, a biological colonization found beneath the black crusts was also characterized using Phase Contrast microscopy.

Community Turnover of Wood-Inhabiting Fungi across Hierarchical Spatial Scales

For efficient use of conservation resources it is important to determine how species diversity changes across spatial scales. In many poorly known species groups little is known about at which spatial scales the conservation efforts should be focused. Here we examined how the community turnover of wood-inhabiting fungi is realised at three hierarchical levels, and how much of community variation is explained by variation in resource composition and spatial proximity. The hierarchical study design consisted of management type (fixed factor), forest site (random factor, nested within management type) and study plots (randomly placed plots within each study site). To examine how species richness varied across the three hierarchical scales, randomized species accumulation curves and additive partitioning of species richness were applied. To analyse variation in wood-inhabiting species and dead wood composition at each scale, linear and Permanova modelling approaches were used. Wood-inhabiting fungal communities were dominated by rare and infrequent species. The similarity of fungal communities was higher within sites and within management categories than among sites or between the two management categories, and it decreased with increasing distance among the sampling plots and with decreasing similarity of dead wood resources. However, only a small part of community variation could be explained by these factors. The species present in managed forests were in a large extent a subset of those species present in natural forests. Our results suggest that in particular the protection of rare species requires a large total area. As managed forests have only little additional value complementing the diversity of natural forests, the conservation of natural forests is the key to ecologically effective conservation. As the dissimilarity of fungal communities increases with distance, the conserved natural forest sites should be broadly distributed in space, yet the individual conserved areas should be large enough to ensure local persistence.

Assessing the Taxonomic Identity of White and Orange Specimens of Cantharellus: Occasional Colour Variants or Independent Species?

Abstract Species of Cantharellus contain carotenoid pigments, which produce yellow, orange and red colours. As microscopic characters are of limited value to separate species, colour has always been an important taxonomic character for species delimitation in Cantharellus. Entirely white Cantharellus or specimens lacking yellow pigments are occasionally reported from Europe, but it is unclear whether these represent independent species or are simply unusual colour variants of otherwise yellow species. The main objective of this study is to assess the taxonomic identity of such white and orange specimens using molecular data. In the context of an ongoing 4-gene phylogeny of European Cantharellus, an ITS2-LSU dataset representing all the European taxa was assembled, including 9 white and 3 orange specimens. Bayesian analyses revealed that white specimens may occasionally occur in C. amethysteus, C. cibarius, C. ferruginascens, C. pallens and C. romagnesianus, whereas orange specimens are found in C. cibarius and C. pallens. We therefore associate white specimens with an albinism phenomenon due to a possible absence of carotenoids. Accordingly, the names C. cibarius var. inodorus and C. cibarius f. pallidus are neotypified and synonymized with C. cibarius, while C. gallaecicus is considered a synonym of C. romagnesianus based on sequences from a paratype specimen of the former. Likewise, the name Cantharellus cibarius var. salmoneus is neotypified and falls in synonymy with C. cibarius.

Contribution to the knowledge of tomentelloid fungi in the Iberian Peninsula. III

Descriptions and original iconography are given for the following tomentelloid basidiomycetes from the Iberian Peninsula: Tomentella badia, T cinereoumbrina, T fuscocinerea, T bresadolae, T bryophila, T brevispina, T neobourdotii, T ramosissima and T stuposa. Their distribution in the area is reviewed. T brevispina is a new record to the Iberian Peninsula. T badia, T fuscocinerea , T bryophila and T neobourdotii are new to Portugal.

Species delimitation in the European species of Clavulina (Cantharellales, Basidiomycota) inferred from phylogenetic analyses of ITS region and morphological data

The identification of the conventionally accepted species of Clavulina (Cantharellales, Basidiomycota) in Europe (Clavulina amethystina, Clavulina cinerea, Clavulina cristata, and Clavulina rugosa) is often difficult and many specimens are not straightforwardly assignable to any of those four species, which is why some authors have questioned their identity. In order to assess the status of those species, a morphological examination was combined with the molecular analysis of the ITS region. The same six major clades were obtained in the Bayesian and parsimony phylogenetic analyses, and all six clades were well-supported at least by one of the analyses. Morphological characters, such as the overall branching pattern, the presence and intensity of grey colour, the cristation of the apices, and basidiospore size and shape were to various extents correlated with the phylogenetic signal obtained from the ITS region. The congruence between the molecular analyses and morphology, rather than geographical origin, suggests the existence of several species that can be delimited using a combined phylogenetic and morphological species recognition. The analyses revealed that C. cristata and C. rugosa are well-delimited species. In contrast, more than one taxa could be subsumed under the names C. amethystina and C. cinerea, the taxonomical complexity of which is discussed. The ITS region is proved to be adequate to separate phylogenetic species of Clavulina.

Two new species of Hydnum with ovoid basidiospores: H. ovoideisporum and H. vesterholtii

Two new species of Hydnum, characterized by slender Hydnum rufescens-like basidiomes and ovoid to broadly ellipsoid basidiospores, are described from the Iberian Peninsula based on morphological and ITS molecular data. Hydnum ovoideisporum is distinguished by pilei with deep orange tones and strong preference for calcareous soil. It is widespread in the Iberian-Mediterranean area. Hydnum vesterholtii is characterized by its ocher to light ocher pileus, and nearly all the collections were made in the Pyrenees. Both ovoid-spored species are monophyletic well supported groups in the maximum parsimony and Bayesian ITS phylogenies, while the remainder of the samples assigned to H. rufescens s.l. and having globose basidiospores split into six well supported clades. The need to typify the name Hydnum rufescens is discussed, and a provisional key is given for the European taxa of Hydnum.

Diversity and richness of corticioid fungi (Basidiomycota) on Azores Islands: a preliminary survey

The diversity and species richness of corticioid fungi from three islands of the central group of the Azores Archipelago (Faial, Pico and Terceira) are analysed. The study covered 23 localities and found 88 species belonging to 44 genera, 73 being new to the Azores. Hyphodontia, Hyphoderma, Peniophora and Trechispora are the more significant genera and 36% of these genera are represented by one species only. Considering the available data, it is concluded that this biota shares 73% of its species with that of the East coast of North America, 83% with that of SW Europe (Spain and Portugal), 63% with that of the Canary Islands and 39% with that of Morocco.

Trentepohlia algae biofilms as bioindicator of atmospheric metal pollution

In this work, a reddish biocolonization composed mainly by Trentepohlia algae affecting a synthetic building material from a modern building from the 90s located in the Bizkaia Science and Technology Park (Zamudio, North of Spain) was characterized and its ability to accumulate metals coming from the surrounding atmosphere was evaluated. To asses if these biofilms can act as bioindicators of the surrounding metal pollution, a fast non-invasive in situ methodology based on the use of hand-held energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (HH-ED-XRF) was used. In order to corroborate the in situ obtained conclusions, some fragments from the affected material were taken to analyze the metal distribution by means of micro-energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (μ-ED-XRF) and to confirm the presence of metal particles deposited on it using Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled to an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (SEM-EDS). In order to confirm if Trentepohlia algae biofilms growing on the surface of building materials could be a fast way to in situ provide information about the surrounding metal pollution, a second Trentepohlia algae biofilm growing on a different kind of material (sandstone) was analyzed from an older historical building, La Galea Fortress (Getxo, North of Spain).

Spelling out Jaapia species

Jaapia is a wood-saprobic genus of corticioid fungi for which two species have been recognized: J. argillacea Bres. and J. ochroleuca (Bres.) Nannf. & J. Erikss. Whereas the first one is easily recognized by its characteristic spores, the descriptions of the second indicated variable spores, which once led us to believe that J. ochroleuca could be a species complex rather than a single species. Eleven new ITS nrDNA sequences of J. ochroleuca were aligned with two obtained from GenBank and four of J. argillacea. The molecular results, parsimony analysis and KP2 distances clearly delimitate one highly supported Jaapia clade, with two subclades that correspond to the two described species. Morphological studies, including the holotype and isotype of J. ochroleuca, show significant differences between the clades concerning the size and shape of spores. The present study corroborates two species in this genus and also confirms that J. ochroleuca is a well-defined species in which spores show great morphological variability. Based on the Jaapia “species hypothesis”, the J. ochroleuca reference sequence has been selected. A comprehensive key to two Jaapia species is also provided.