Penicillium astrolabium and Penicillium neocrassum, two new species isolated from grapes and their phylogenetic placement in the P. olsonii and P. brevicompactum clade

Abstract

We describe two new terverticillate Penicillium species isolated from grapes on the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic differences from known species. The strains were isolated in the course of a study to establish the mycobiota of grapes in Portugal. Penicillium astrolabium is phenotypically similar to P. olsonii but differs from it by two cultural characters, growth rates and the colony reverse color. P. neocrassum is similar to P. brevicompactum but is readily distinguished by sclerotia production. Phylogenetically P. astrolabium and P. neocrassum are placed respectively in the P. olsonii and P. brevicompactum clade. Multilocus analysis confirmed the genetic distinctiveness of both species. The parsimony trees obtained for ITS-lsu rDNA region and two protein coding genes, calmodulin and β-tubulin, show congruence for all the species in the Olsonii series: P. brevicompactum, P. bialowiezense, P. olsonii, P. astrolabium and P. neocrassum, indicating that these taxa are genetically well isolated.

• DNA sequences
• fungi
• grapes
• taxonomy

Rita Serra was supported by grant SFRH/BPD/20827/2004 by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia in Portugal. The authors thank Bruno Mannarelli for technical support, Michael Hertwig for the Latin translation and Isabel Santos (MUM, Portugal) for sending strains for the study.

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