Home • Chroogomphus vinicolor CA002 v1.0
Chroogomphus vinicolor
Chroogomphus vinicolor photographed by Nhu Nguyen, December 6, 2018 in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California.

Chroogomphus vinicolor

Chroogomphus vinicolor is a forest-dwelling mushroom with a broad distribution across North America. The species is characterized by its’s wine-colored caps, decurrent dark gills, dark large spores, and large encrusted cystidia. The species belongs to a group of fungi, predominantly the genera Chroogomphus and Gomphidius, that parasitizes the ectomycorrhizal structures (root-tips) of other suilloid fungi, in particular Rhizopogon and Suillus (Agerer 1990). The hyphae of these fungi can be found interwoven in the mantle of the mycorrhizal structure as well as rhizomorphs of the host fungus (Olsson et al. 2000). These fungi have not been found on root-tips without their hosts, and are not cultivatable in a cultivatable suilloid clade lends credence to their lifestyle as a parasite.

This genome is part of the Community Science Program (Proposal 502931) “A genome atlas of the ectomycorrhizal genus Suillus: Phylogenetic diversity and population genomics of a keystone guild of symbiotic forest fungi”, a collaborative effort aimed at using genomics data to understand and connect the evolutionary history, ecology, and genomic mechanisms of mutualistic ectomycorrhizal symbionts and their Pinaceae hosts. Please contact the PI for permission prior to the use of any data in publications.

References:

Agerer, R. (1990) Studies on ectomycorrhizae XXIV. Ectomycorrhizae of Chroogomphus helveticus and C. rutilus (Gomphidiaceae, Basidiomycetes) and their relationship to those of Suillus and Rhizopogon. Nova Hedwigia 50: 1–63.

Olsson, P. A., Munzenberger, B., Mahmood, S., Erland, S., Olsson, A., and Mu, B. (2000). Molecular and anatomical evidence for a three-way association between Pinus sylvestris and the ectomycorrhizal fungi Suillus bovinus and Gomphidius roseus. Mycol. Res. 104, 1372–1378.