Phylogenomic delineation of two new species of ascomycetous yeasts - Wickerhamiella koratensis sp. nov. and Wickerhamiella limtongiae sp. nov. - and proposal of two synonyms - Wickerhamiella infanticola and Wickerhamiella tropicalis
Two novel ascomycetous yeast species of the genus Wickerhamiella are proposed based on isolates obtained in Thailand from food waste and the fruitbody of polypore fungus, and on a combination of conventional DNA-barcode sequence analyses and whole-genome phylogenies. We focus on a particular subclade of the genus Wickerhamiella that contains species found in anthropic environments and describe W. limtongiae sp. nov. (DMKU-FW31-5T = PYCC 9022 = TBRC 15055), found on food waste samples. In the same subclade we propose that W. infanticola is regarded as a synonym of W. sorbophila and that W. tropicalis is regarded as a synonym of W. verensis. In an adjacent clade, we describe W. koratensis sp. nov. (DMKU-KO16T = PYCC 8908 = TBRC 14869) that represents the closest relative of W. slavikovae and was isolated from the fruitbody of Bjerkandera sp.