Abstract
In Chile, species of true morels have traditionally been identified on the basis of few morphological characteristics, but overall the genus Morchella has been poorly investigated and no studies combining morphological with molecular data exist. Here, Morchella collections from native forests of Nothofagus in Chilean Patagonia were characterized by combining morphological taxonomy with four-gene phylogenetic analysis. The phylogenetic relationships inferred from the concatenated dataset revealed that all collections belonged to the species-rich Elata clade and two new species were identified, which are formally described as M. andinensis and M. aysenina. Morchella andinensis was previously reported under the phylogenetic code Mel-37 from Argentinean Patagonia, while M. aysenina, which did not cluster with any other previously published groups of sequences, could be endemic to Chilean Patagonia. A third species, the transcontinental M. tridentina, is reported for the first time in Chile. It is hoped that these results will contribute to the limited knowledge of the genus Morchella in Chile and southern South America. Morchella andinensis and M. tridentina from Chilean and Argentinean Patagonia and M. aysenina constitute the southernmost collections of morels in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Acknowledgements
We particularly wish to thank the collectors of the Aysén Region of Chilean Patagonia for their valuable collaboration with the location of the morel fruiting sites and information about the growing habit of the fungus in the field. We are also grateful for the collaboration of C. Gómez, F. Silva, and D. Montenegro in the field work and R. Oliva (UdeC) for the SEM images. We appreciate the valuable contributions of the reviewers of the first version of this manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by the Research Fund for the Native Forest of the Corporación Nacional Forestal (CONAF-Chile) (project FIBN 077/2013).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. AM, GP, MG, PO, DCh, and YG did sample collection, material preparation, and data analysis. AM, MG, CC, and DCh wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors commented on previous versions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Machuca, A., Gerding, M., Chávez, D. et al. Two new species of Morchella from Nothofagus forests in Northwestern Patagonia (Chile). Mycol Progress 20, 781–795 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-021-01703-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-021-01703-x