Practical Molecular Taxonomy of Fungi

Abstract

With fungi increasingly used in industry as sources of bioactive compounds and as agents to produce such compounds, it is becoming more important that fungal taxonomy be a practical discipline able to convey as much biological meaning as possible. An evolutionary approach to define fungal taxa is preferred because it is objective and provides outstanding predictive value. Traditional morphological approaches to fungal systematics are problematic owing to a lack of characters useful for grouping, and they frequently fail to provide a solid evolutionary framework, particularly at the species level. However, in the past decade new molecular and analytical tools have been developed that allow robust evolutionary inferences that can be used to define and identify fungal taxa. One or two gene sequences can be used to identify unknown fungi, often to the species level, with increasing accuracy. At the species level, a multigene phylogenetic approach is advocated to define and recognize fungal species. With this approach, species boundaries are perceived where different genes share evolutionary partitions, which serve as evidence for a lack of genetic exchange among reproductively isolated taxa. In this chapter, I will outline molecular phylogenetic approaches for addressing specific questions that arise in fungal biotechnology, from the species level upward.