Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Meeting of the Mycological Society of Japan

Thousands of plants (liverworts, lycophytes, monocots and dicots) are heterotrophic and nutritionally dependent upon fungi (glomero-, asco- and basidiomycetes) during part or all of their life. Only recently has the mycorrhizal biology of these plants started to be systematically unravelled. I will explore our knowledge of these evolutionarily and ecologically diverse plant-fungal symbioses highlighting: 1) areas where there has been significant progress (i.e., evolution, specificity, networks, germination), and 2) the questions that remain to be answered about myco-heterotrophy and epiparasitism (e.g., carbon transfer, signalling).

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Lignicolous Marine Fungi from Yokosuka, Japan ?Mohamed A. Abdelwahab and Takahiko Nagahama Extremobiosphere Research Center, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan The occurrence of marine fungi on drift wood samples collected from one sandy and one rocky beach around Yokosuka city were surveyed. Thirty-nine fungi (28 Ascomycetes and 11 mitosporic) were recorded from 90 samples. Of these, 16 fungi are new records for Japan. Twenty-nine and sixteen fungi were recorded from the sandy and the rocky beach respectively. Fungi recorded from the two beaches were significantly different with only six species common to both sites. All, but one, of the recorded ascomycetes were pyrenomycetes. Ceriosporopsis halima was very frequent fungus from both sites, while Corollospora species dominating the fungal community on the sandy beach. Other common fungi include: Arenariomyces trifurcates, Lignincola laevis and Clavatospora bulbosa. Anisostagma rotundatum and its undescribed anamorphic stage were recorded for the first time after its original description from Denmark. The anamorph-teleomorph connection was confirmed using comparative analysis of the LSU rDNA sequences. Several undescribed taxa with unfurling appendages (Halosphaeriaceae) were recorded during this study. The phylogenetic position of those undescribed taxa will be discussed.

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Astraeus is the most popular and the most expensive ectomycorrhizal fungus consumed in northern and northeastern part of Thailand while this mushroom is not popular for consumption in Japan. The purpose of this work was to determine the taxonomic relationship between Astraeus samples from Thailand and Japan by morphological and molecular analysis. Astraeus basidiomata were collected from many areas in both countries. All specimens of mature basidiomata were separated into three morphological groups base on the number of peridium ray, and spore ornamentation. One of them was identified as Astraeus oderatus, which were collected only from Thailand and showed the exoperidium with broad ray shape and the long spine of spore ornamentation. The other two groups (Group A, Group B), which were collected from Thailand and Japan, could not be identified as species. ITS (ITS1-5.8s-ITS2) region within rDNA were amplified by PCR and sequenced in some samples, and the sequence data were compared with those of Astraeus in the GenBank. The phylogenetic analysis of ITS sequence clearly separated Thai and Japanese samples into 3 clades, i.e. Astraeus orderatus, A. asiaticus and A. hygrometricus. The morphological group A was divided into A. asiaticus and A. hygrometricus clades, and A. hygrometricus clade also contained morphological group B. Our result shows that phylogenetic analysis can be used to solve the confusion of the morphological character within Astraeus species.

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