title: Aspergillusis monophyletic: Evidence from multiple gene phylogenies and extrolites profiles.
abstract: Aspergillusis one of the economically most important fungal genera. Recently, the ICN adopted the single name nomenclature which has forced mycologists to choose one name for fungi (e.g.Aspergillus,Fusarium,Penicillium, etc.). Previously two proposals for the single name nomenclature inAspergilluswere presented: one attributes the name "Aspergillus" to clades comprising seven different teleomorphic names, by supporting the monophyly of this genus; the other proposes thatAspergillusis a non-monophyletic genus, by preserving theAspergillusname only to species belonging to subgenusCircumdatiand maintaining the sexual names in the other clades. The aim of our study was to test the monophyly of Aspergilli by two independent phylogenetic analyses using a multilocus phylogenetic approach. One test was run on the publicly available coding regions of six genes (RPB1,RPB2,Tsr1,Cct8,BenA,CaM), using 96 species ofPenicillium,Aspergillusand related taxa. Bayesian (MrBayes) and Ultrafast Maximum Likelihood (IQ-Tree) and Rapid Maximum Likelihood (RaxML) analyses gave the same conclusion highly supporting the monophyly ofAspergillus. The other analyses were also performed by using publicly available data of the coding sequences of nine loci (18S rRNA, 5,8S rRNA, 28S rRNA (D1-D2),RPB1,RPB2,CaM,BenA,Tsr1,Cct8) of 204 different species. Both Bayesian (MrBayes) and Maximum Likelihood (RAxML) trees obtained by this second round of independent analyses strongly supported the monophyly of the genusAspergillus. The stability test also confirmed the robustness of the results obtained. In conclusion, statistical analyses have rejected the hypothesis that the Aspergilli are non-monophyletic, and provided robust arguments that the genus is monophyletic and clearly separated from the monophyletic genusPenicillium. There is no phylogenetic evidence to splitAspergillusinto several genera and the nameAspergilluscan be used for all the species belonging toAspergillusi.e. the clade comprising the subgeneraAspergillus, Circumdati, Fumigati, Nidulantes,sectionCremeiand certain species which were formerly part of the generaPhialosimplexandPolypaecilum. SectionCremeiand the clade containingPolypaecilumandPhialosimplexare proposed as new subgenera ofAspergillus. The phylogenetic analysis also clearly shows thatAspergillus clavatoflavusandA. zonatusdo not belong to the genusAspergillus.Aspergillus clavatoflavusis therefore transferred to a new genusAspergillagoasAspergillago clavatoflavusandA. zonatuswas transferred toPenicilliopsisasP. zonata.The subgenera ofAspergillusshare similar extrolite profiles indicating that the genus is one large genus from a chemotaxonomical point of view. Morphological and ecophysiological characteristics of the species also strongly indicate thatAspergillusis a polythetic class in phenotypic characters.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Microbiology, Faculty of Science and Informatics, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kocsubé
authors.affiliation: Institute of Sciences of Food Production, National Research Council, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Perrone
authors.affiliation: Institute of Sciences of Food Production, National Research Council, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Magistà
authors.affiliation: CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Houbraken
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Microbiology, Faculty of Science and Informatics, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Varga
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Microbiology, Faculty of Science and Informatics, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Szigeti
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hubka
authors.affiliation: Korean Agricultural Culture Collection, National Institute of Agricultural Science, 166, Nongsaengmyeong-ro, Iseo-myeon, Wanju-gun, Jeollabuk-do, 55365, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: S-B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Frisvad
authors.affiliation: CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Samson
keywords: Aspergillago Samson, Houbraken & Frisvad, gen. nov.; Aspergillago clavatoflava (Raper & Fennell) Samson, Houbraken & Frisvad, comb. nov.; Aspergillus; Aspergillus subgenus Cremei, subgen. nov.; Aspergillus subgenus Polypaecilum, subgen. nov.; Monophyly; Multigene phylogeny; Nomenclature; Penicilliopsis zonatus (Kwon-Chung & Fennell) Samson, Houbraken & Frisvad, comb. nov.; Teleomorphs