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    STUDIA BIOLOGIA - Issue no. 1 / 2019  
         
  Article:   THE MAVERICK FUNGAL GENUS WALLEMIA – FROM HALOTOLERANT W. MELLICOLA TO HALOPHILIC AND CHAOTOLERANT W. ICHTHYOPHAGA.

Authors:  CENE GOSTINČAR, XIAOHUAN SUN, JANJA ZAJC, POLONA ZALAR, YUCHONG TANG, CHAO FANG, YONGLUN LUO, ZEWEI SONG, NINA GUNDE-CIMERMAN. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  Most fungal species that form an integral part of microbial communities in different hypersaline environments around the world are halotolerant. They grow at salinities exceeding 2.9 M NaCl but also in media without salt. Wallemia spp. that until 2005 contained only the species W. sebi represents an exception. The genus now contains seven additional species: W. ichthyophaga, W. muriae, W. mellicola, W. canadensis, W. tropicalis, W. hederae and W. peruviensis. Three of them display obligate halophily. The rarest, and phylogenetically and morphologically most distinct species is W. ichthyophaga. It strongly prefers high concentrations of ionic over non-ionic solutes, it is able to grow in saturated NaCl, KCl and MgSO4 solutions and even at around 2 M MgCl2, explaining its isolation from magnesium rich bitterns. One of the most common and ubiquitous species of the genus is extremotolerant W. mellicola. It is distributed worldwide, in a range of habitats: soil, air, house dust, hypersaline water of solar salterns, salted, sugared and dried food products, seeds, straw, pollen and forest plants. Although halotolerant, it can grow at 4.1 M NaCl and 1.4 M MgCl2. The first genome of W. mellicola was sequenced in 2012 and of W. ichthyophaga in 2013. To investigate the halotolerant/halophilic character and population characteristics of both species we now resequenced genomes of 22 W. ichthyophaga and of 25 W. mellicola strains, adding important information on this 500 million old basidiomycetous genus within sub-phylum Wallemiomycotina.

Keywords: basidiomycete, halophilic fungus, population genomics, recombination, specialist. 		 
         
     
         
         
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