Übersichtsarbeit
Nivicolous myxomycetes from Kamchatka: barcode-assisted species identification
Novozhilov, Yuri K.; Shchepin, Oleg N.; Prikhodko, Ilya S.; Schnittler, Martin
63 Literaturangaben
Online veröffentlicht: May 5, 2025
Manuskript akzeptiert: Apr 7, 2025
Manuskript-Revision angefordert: Apr 1, 2025
Manuskript erhalten: Sep 26, 2024
Abstract
In June 2017, a systematic survey for nivicolous myxomycetes was carried out in two regions of the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russian Federation), both belonging to the National Park “Vulkany Kamchatki”: in southeastern Kamchatka around the Avachinsky volcano and in central Kamchatka, near the village of Esso. Over 90% of all collections were barcoded (18S rDNA, 279 sequences), and a BLAST search revealed many new sequences: only 104 barcodes (37.2%) were 100.0% identical to sequences in GenBank, further 152 were similar to published ones (54.5%, ≥ 97.9% ID), but 23 barcodes (8.2%, < 97.9% ID) were highly divergent. The ASAP algorithm, which basically provides barcode-based species hypotheses, supported the empirically found similarity threshold of 2.1% dissimilarity: the lowest number of contradictions between morphologically identified and barcode-defined species were found for this barcode gap. However, our initial morphological identification was confirmed by BLAST in only 115 of 256 cases (44.9%), where sufficiently similar sequences were found in GenBank. This highlights the necessity of a DNA barcode-assisted species identification, especially in quantitative surveys involving numerous weathered or maldeveloped colonies. We present a workflow for implementing this approach. The survey covered three vegetation belts: stone birch forests (400–800 m a.s.l.), subalpine shrub thickets of mountain alder and/or dwarf pine (700–1000 m), and mountain tundra (900–1700 m). Thirty morphospecies from 307 collections were recorded. Twenty-eight morphologically identified species were previously unknown for Kamchatka, and one species, Lamproderma zonatopulchellum, is a new record for Russia. Many (13) taxa are classified as rare (a species represents < 0.5% of all records). Only Didymium dubium, Lamproderma echinosporum, L. ovoideum, and Badhamia albescens were frequently occurring in both areas and all three vegetation belts.
Schlagworte
Amoebozoa • DNA barcoding • Myxogastria • Northeast Asia • biodiversity • subalpine and alpine ecosystems • slime molds • species inventory