Unravelling the hidden diversity of cave mycobiota in Thailand's Satun Geopark.

Karst caves are distinctive ecosystems that have limited nutrients, darkness, low to moderate temperatures, and high moisture levels, which allow for a diverse range of fungal communities to thrive. Despite their significance, little is understood about the fungi found in karst caves in Thailand. In 2019, we studied the cultured mycobiota from five substrate types (air, water, rock, soil/sediment, and organic debris) in two karst caves (Le Stegodon and Phu Pha Phet Caves) of the Satun UNESCO Global Geopark, southern Thailand. A cumulative count of 829 distinct fungal morphological types was identified, encompassing 319 fungal culturable were observed. Based on preliminary analyses of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence using BLAST searches, the most common phylum among the fungal morphotypes was Ascomycota, harboring 282 species in 91 genera, 93.4% of which were distributed in the classes Eurotiomycetes, Sordariomycetes, and Dothideomycetes. The most common fungal genera identified in the two karst caves were Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, Talaromyces, Xylaria, and Trichoderma, with 45, 41, 24, 14, 14, and 6 species identified, respectively. Discovering fungi in Thai karst caves highlights the extensive fungal diversity in the Satun UNESCO Global Geopark, implying undiscovered species, and emphasizing the need for comprehensive investigations in other unexplored Thai karst caves.

Studies on the Genus Pyrenopolyporus (Hypoxylaceae) in Thailand Using a Polyphasic Taxonomic Approach.

Over the past two decades, hypoxylaceous specimens were collected from several sites in Thailand. In this study, we examined their affinity to the genus Pyrenopolyporus using macroscopic and microscopic morphological characters, dereplication of their stromatal secondary metabolites using ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detection and ion mobility tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-DAD-IM-MS/MS), and molecular phylogenetic analyses. We describe and illustrate five novel species and a new record for the country, present multi-locus phylogenetic analyses that show the distinction between the proposed species, and provide proteomic profiles of the fungi using matrix associated laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS) for the first time. Based on our findings, this strategy is useful as a complementary tool to distinguish species between Daldinia and Pyrenopolyporus in a consistent way with the phylogenetic analysis.