English
Exophiala schisandrae sp. nov. and E. exsudans sp. nov.; Two Novel Fungal Species Isolated from Galls on the Chinese magnolia-vine (Schisandra chinensis) in Korea
Seong-Keun Lim1, Min-Ki Kim2, Che-Yeon Park1, Won-Kwon Jung2, In-Kyu Kang3, Seung-Yeol Lee1,4*, Hee-Young Jung1,4
1Department of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
2Gyeongbuk Agricultural Research and Extension Services, Daegu, Korea
3Department of Horticultural Science, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
4Institute of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
*Email: leesy1123@knu.ac.kr
In 2024, galls induced by gall-midges (Lasioptera sp.; Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) were collected from stems of Chinese magnolia-vine (Schisandra chinensis) in Mungyeong-si, Gyeongbuk province, Korea. From larval chambers within the galls, twelve fungal strains were isolated from collected samples. To identify these fungal strains, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions, large subunit (LSU), β-tubulin (TUB), actin (ACT) genes were analyzed. BLAST results of ITS regions, LSU, TUB, ACT gene sequences obtained from the twelve strains showed similarities of 87.2–87.3, 97.2–97.7, 75.0–80.2, 83.0–83.2% with the closely related species E. radicis P2772 and E. equina CBS 119.23T. In the phylogenetic tree, five strains (KNUF-24-1Ha, KNUF-24-1Wb, KNUF-24-5La, KNUF-24-7L1b, KNUF-24-7L2c) and seven strains (KNUF-24-3La, KNUF-24-7L2a, KNUF-24-7L3a, KNUF-24-9Wb, KNUF-24-9L2a, KNUF-24-9L3e, KNUF-24-10Wa) formed two independent clusters, both closely related to E. radicis P2772 and E. equina CBS 119.23ᵀ, as well as to each species cluster. Within each cluster, strains exhibited identical morphological features and formed the same cluster in the phylogenetic tree, confirming that they represent the same fungal species. Comparison with the closely related species, differences in colonies on potato dextrose agar and malt extract agar, as well as the morphology of conidia and yeast-like cells were observed. Based on cultural and morphological characteristics with phylogenetic analyses, we proposed E. schisandrae sp. nov. and E. exsuadans sp. nov. as two novel Exophiala species in Korea. These findings also indicate that two novel Exophiala species isolated from galls on S. chinensis by gall-midge larvae suggest potential interactions among the host plant, insect, and fungus.
