Mortierella Coem.
The genus Mortierella Coem., the type of the order Mortierellales Caval.-Sm., was described in 1863 by Coemans and the first described species was Mortierella polycephala Coem.. The order Mortierellales is one of the largest basal fungal lineages. It is currently classified either within the subphylum Mucoromycotina (Hibbett et al. 2007) or within its own subphylum Mortierellomycotina (Hoffmann et al. 2011). Traditionally the genus Mortierella was divided into nine sections (Gams 1977). However, recent phylogenetic analyses do not support this classification. However some groups may be distinguished: 'selenospora and parvispora', 'verticillata-humilis', 'lignicola', 'mutabilis, globulifera and angusta', 'strangulata and wolfii', 'alpina and polycephala', 'gamsii'. Itwas also shown that the genera Dissophora Thaxt., Gamsi e l l a (R.K. Be n j . ) Benny & M. Blackw. , Lobosporangium M. Blackw. & Benny and Modicella (Smith et al. 2013) are placed within the genus Mortierella. The morphology of Mortierellales is quite simplified and it seems to depend on culture condition, explaining the incompatibility between morphological and phylogenetic studies. The representatives of this group are mostly soil inhabiting saprotrophs (Wagner et al. 2013). The phylogenetic trees for Mortierella are presented in Figs. 1 and 2.
Fig. 1 Maximum likelihood analysis based on the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 dataset for clade lignicola (as defined by Wagner et al. 2013). The phylogram is constructed froma muscle alignment of 616 nucleotides of 42 strains. Node support above 75 % is given. Newtaxa are in blue and ex-type strains in bold.
Fig. 2 Maximum likelihood analysis based on the D1/D2 domain of the large subunit (LSU, 28S) dataset for selected species of Mortierellales. The phylogram is constructed from a muscle alignment of 670 nucleotides of 27 strains. Node support above 75 % is given. New taxa are in blue and ex-type strains in bold.
Species