Gongronella Ribaldi
Mucorales comprise ubiquitous, mostly saprotrophic organisms and are one of the most ancient groups of fungi. They can be easily isolated fromsoil, dung, water, stored grains, plants, as well as other fungi due to their rapid growth rate and ability to colonize and sporulate on diverse, carbohydrate-rich, terrestrial substrates (Benny 2008; O’Donnell et al. 2001). Some species are responsible for a number of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised humans and other mammals (Hoffmann et al. 2013). The genus Gongronella (Cunninghamellaceae, Mucorales) was established in 1952 by Ribaldi, for a single species, Gongronella urceolifera Ribaldi (Ribaldi 1952). The primary reason for introducing a separate genus to accommodate this species was its distinct urn-shaped apophyses and columellae. Three years later, based on the presence of an identical apophysis, Peyronel and Dal Vesco (1955) and Pici (1955) transferred Absidia butleti Lendn. to Gongronella, both studies indicating that the type species, G. urceolifera, was identical to G. butleri (Lendn.) Peyronel& Dal Vesco. Hesseltine and Ellis (1961) added an additional species, G. lacrispora Hesselt. & J.J. Ellis, differing from G. butleri by forming circinate sporangia and teardrop-shaped sporangiospores. To date Gongronella includes only these two species: G. butleri and G. lacrispora (Kirk et al. 2008). Recently, Walther et al. (2013) showed that Hesseltinella vesiculosa H.P. Upadhyay and Circinellala crymispora Aramb. & Cabello belong to the Gongronella clade, but their morphological characteristics differ from those of the other species of Gongronella. In general, species of Gongronella grow slowly between 25 °C and 27 °C (Hesseltine and Ellis 1964) and are frequently found in soil (Hesseltine and Ellis 1961; Upadhyay 1969; Ho and Chen 1990). Several studies have reported that species of Gongronella have important biotechnological applications, such as the production of enzymes and antifungal proteins (Zhou et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2008; Wei et al. 2010). The taxonomy of Gongronella has been determined on the basis of morphological characteristics including the size and shape of sporangia, sporangiospores and columellae. Benny (1995) alluded to the limitations in the usage of morphological characters for species delineation in certain zygomycetes, and has suggested the use of molecular tools for solving existing controversies surrounding taxonomic classification. O’Donnell et al. (1998) also suggested that the traditional classification scheme for Zygomycota did not reflect the phylogenetic relationships among these taxa. Recently, molecular identification has been evaluated for Mucorales. O’Donnell et al. (2001) performed a comprehensive study of Mucorales with partial nucleotide sequences of nuclear 18S ribosomal RNA small subunit (SSU), nuclear large subunit 28S ribosomal RNA(LSU), and translation elongation factor-1α (EF-1α) gene exons. The phylogeny of Mucorales was also studied by White et al. (2006), who used the combined rRNA operon (18S+ 28S+5.8S gene) to infer relationships. In recent years, several studies based on multi-loci analysis (18S, 28S, EF-1α, actin, RNA polymerase II) have been conducted (Tanabe et al. 2003; Hoffmann et al. 2013;Walther et al. 2013). Different molecular targets have been used to characterize phylogenetic genera. In a previous study, a new species, G. koreana, isolated from forest soil from Jeonnam, Korea, was reported (Ariyawansa et al. 2015b). The phylogenetic trees are presented in Figs. 163 and 164.

While evaluating the diversity of fungi of the order Mucorales isolated from a soil sample collected at Gwangan beach, Busan, Korea, an isolate showing morphological variation compared to other species of Gongronella was identified and, based on subsequent multi-gene phylogenetic analyses is described here as a new species.

Species