Geographic locality greatly influences fungal endophyte communities in Cephalotaxus harringtonia.

Although endophytes of conifers have been extensively studied, few data are available on Cephalotaxaceae. We examined foliar and stem endophytes of Cephalotaxus harringtonia, within its natural range in Japan and outside its natural range in France to study the effect of geography on endophyte community composition. In Japan, rapidly growing endophytes were dominant and may have masked the real diversity, in comparison to France where most endophytes were growing slowly. Analyses of ITS rDNA revealed 104 different Blast Groups among 554 isolates. Almost no overlap between endophyte assemblages of C. harringtonia from the two countries was observed. It seems that Japanese C. harringtonia trees, which should be well adapted to their native site, would host a specific, endemic endophyte community, while trees that have been introduced recently to a foreign site, in France, should have captured existing cosmopolitan and more generalist taxa. In Japan the majority of xylariaceous taxa, which dominated the communities, were unknown and, although closely related to Asian taxa, may be new to science. Dothideomycetes were more prevalent in France. Locally, urban environment, particularly in Japan, may have introduced some perturbations in the native endophyte community of C. harringtonia, with an abundance of generalist fungi such as Nigrospora and Colletotrichum.

Evolution of oil-producing trichomes in Sisyrinchium (Iridaceae): insights from the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the genus.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Sisyrinchium (Iridaceae: Iridoideae: Sisyrinchieae) is one of the largest, most widespread and most taxonomically complex genera in Iridaceae, with all species except one native to the American continent. Phylogenetic relationships within the genus were investigated and the evolution of oil-producing structures related to specialized oil-bee pollination examined. METHODS: Phylogenetic analyses based on eight molecular markers obtained from 101 Sisyrinchium accessions representing 85 species were conducted in the first extensive phylogenetic analysis of the genus. Total evidence analyses confirmed the monophyly of the genus and retrieved nine major clades weakly connected to the subdivisions previously recognized. The resulting phylogenetic hypothesis was used to reconstruct biogeographical patterns, and to trace the evolutionary origin of glandular trichomes present in the flowers of several species. KEY RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Glandular trichomes evolved three times independently in the genus. In two cases, these glandular trichomes are oil-secreting, suggesting that the corresponding flowers might be pollinated by oil-bees. Biogeographical patterns indicate expansions from Central America and the northern Andes to the subandean ranges between Chile and Argentina and to the extended area of the Paraná river basin. The distribution of oil-flower species across the phylogenetic trees suggests that oil-producing trichomes may have played a key role in the diversification of the genus, a hypothesis that requires future testing.

Microsatellite loci to recognize species for the cheese starter and contaminating strains associated with cheese manufacturing.

We report the development of 17 microsatellite markers in the cheese fungi Penicillium camemberti and P. roqueforti, using an enrichment protocol. Polymorphism and cross-amplification were explored using 23 isolates of P. camemberti, 26 isolates of P. roqueforti, and 2 isolates of each of the P. chrysogenum and P. nalgiovense species, used to produce meat fermented products. The markers appeared useful for differentiating species, both using their amplification sizes and the sequences of their flanking regions. The microsatellite locus PC4 was particularly suitable for distinguishing contaminant species closely related to P. camemberti and for clarifying the phylogenetic relationship of this species with its supposed ancestral form, P. commune. We analyzed 22 isolates from different culture collections assigned to the morphospecies P. commune, most of them occurring as food spoilers, mainly from the cheese environment. None of them exhibited identical sequences with the ex-type isolate of the species P. commune. They were instead distributed into two other distinct lineages, corresponding to the old species P. fuscoglaucum and P. biforme, previously synonymized respectively with P. commune and P. camemberti. The ex-type isolate of P. commune was strictly identical to P. camemberti at all the loci examined. P. caseifulvum, a non toxinogenic species described as a new candidate for cheese fermentation, also exhibited sequences identical to P. camemberti. The microsatellite locus PC4 may therefore be considered as a useful candidate for the barcode of these economically important species.