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Tropical species of Cladobotryum and Hypomyces producing red pigments.

ABSTRACT: Twelve species of Hypomyces/Cladobotryum producing red pigments are reported growing in various tropical areas of the world. Ten of these are described as new, including teleomorphs for two previously known anamorphic species. In two species the teleomorph has been found in nature and in three others it was obtained in culture; only anamorphs are known for the rest. None of the studied tropical collections belongs to the common temperate species H. rosellus and H. odoratus to which the tropical teleomorphic collections had previously been assigned. Instead, taxa encountered in the tropics are genetically and morphologically distinct from the nine species of Hypomyces/Cladobotryum producing red pigments known from temperate regions. Besides observed host preferences, anamorphs of several species can spread fast on soft ephemeral agaricoid basidiomata but the slower developing teleomorphs are mostly found on polyporoid basidiomata or bark. While a majority of previous records from the tropics involve collections from Central America, this paper also reports the diversity of these fungi in the Paleotropics. Africa appears to hold a variety of taxa as five of the new species include material collected in scattered localities of this mostly unexplored continent. In examining distribution patterns, most of the taxa do not appear to be pantropical. Some species are known only from the Western Hemisphere, while others have a geographic range from southeastern Asia to Africa or Australia. The use of various morphological characters of anamorphs and teleomorphs as well as culture characteristics in species delimitation is evaluated. For detecting genetic segregation, partial sequences of the two largest subunits of the ribosomal polymerase perform the best in terms of providing informative sites and the number of well-supported groups recognised in the phylogenies. These are followed by the sequence data of the translation-elongation factor 1-alpha, while the ribosomal DNA ITS regions are of only limited use in distinguishing species and their phylogenetic relationships.

SUBMITTER: Poldmaa K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3065983 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Tropical species of Cladobotryum and Hypomyces producing red pigments.

Põldmaa Kadri K

Studies in mycology 20110101

Twelve species of Hypomyces/Cladobotryum producing red pigments are reported growing in various tropical areas of the world. Ten of these are described as new, including teleomorphs for two previously known anamorphic species. In two species the teleomorph has been found in nature and in three others it was obtained in culture; only anamorphs are known for the rest. None of the studied tropical collections belongs to the common temperate species H. rosellus and H. odoratus to which the tropical ...[more]

PMID: 21523187

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Project description:Colorful ornaments have been the focus of sexual selection studies since the work of Darwin. Yellow to red coloration is often produced by carotenoid pigments. Different hypotheses have been formulated to explain the evolution of these traits as signals of individual quality. Many of these hypotheses involve the existence of a signal production cost. The carotenoids necessary for signaling can only be obtained from food. In this line, carotenoid-based signals could reveal an individual's capacity to find sufficient dietary pigments. However, the ingested carotenoids are often yellow and became transformed by the organism to produce pigments of more intense color (red ketocarotenoids). Biotransformation should involve oxidation reactions, although the exact mechanism is poorly known. We tested the hypothesis that carotenoid biotransformation could be costly because a certain level of oxidative stress is required to correctly perform the conversion. The carotenoid-based signals could thus reveal the efficiency of the owner in successfully managing this challenge. In a bird with ketocarotenoid-based ornaments (the red-legged partridge; Alectoris rufa), the availability of different carotenoids in the diet (i.e. astaxanthin, zeaxanthin and lutein) and oxidative stress were manipulated. The carotenoid composition was analyzed and quantified in the ornaments, blood, liver and fat. A number of oxidative stress biomarkers were also measured in the same tissues. First, we found that color and pigment levels in the ornaments depended on food levels of those carotenoids used as substrates in biotransformation. Second, we found that birds exposed to mild levels of a free radical generator (diquat) developed redder bills and deposited higher amounts of ketocarotenoids (astaxanthin) in ornaments. Moreover, the same diquat-exposed birds also showed a weaker resistance to hemolysis when their erythrocytes were exposed to free radicals, with females also enduring higher oxidative damage in plasma lipids. Thus, higher color production would be linked to higher oxidative stress, supporting the biotransformation hypothesis. The recent discovery of an avian oxygenase enzyme involved in converting yellow to red carotenoids may support our results. Nonetheless, the effect could also depend on the abundance of specific substrate carotenoids in the diet. Birds fed with proportionally higher levels of zeaxanthin showed the reddest ornaments with the highest astaxanthin concentrations. Moreover, these birds tended to show the strongest diquat-mediated effect. Therefore, in the evolution of carotenoid-based sexual signals, a biotransformation cost derived from maintaining a well-adjusted redox machinery could coexist with a cost linked to carotenoid acquisition and allocation (i.e. a resource allocation trade-off).

Dataset Information

Tropical species of Cladobotryum and Hypomyces producing red pigments.

Publications

Tropical species of Cladobotryum and Hypomyces producing red pigments.

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