Home • Halteromyces radiatus CBS 162.75 v1.0
Figure 1) Multispored sporangia from a stolon of Halteromyces radiatus. Figure 2) H. radiatus dumbbell-shaped columellate sporangia. Images by Kerry O'Donnell.
Figure 1) Multispored sporangia from a stolon of Halteromyces radiatus. Figure 2) H. radiatus dumbbell-shaped columellate sporangia. Images by Kerry O'Donnell.

Halteromyces radiatus Shipton & Schipper NRRL 6197 (CBS 162.75 = IMI 169827) was originally isolated from mud in a mangrove forest contaminated with effluent from a meat processing plant in Queensland, Australia in 1972.  This strain is the only known isolate of this monotypic genus.  As noted by Shipton & Schipper (1975), it resembles some Absidia species in producing a whorl of aerial, multispored sporangia from a stolon (Fig. 1).  It is distinguished from Absidia and other mucoralean species morphologically by the production of dumbbell-shaped columellate sporangia with a well-developed apophysis (Fig. 2).  This species is presumed to be heterothallic due to the absence of a sexual cycle.  Molecular phylogenetic studies support classification of Halteromyces in the Cunninghamellaceae (Mucorales, Mucoromycota) and indicate that it is nested within a paraphyletic Absidia (Walther et al. 2013; Spatafora et al. 2016).  The whole-genome sequence of this early diverging mucoralean mold was generated as part of the 1000 Fungal Genome Project to advance our knowledge of their evolution.

References:

Shipton WA, Schipper MAA. 1975. Halteromyces, a new genus in the Mucorales. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 41:337–342.

Spatafora JW, Chang Y, Benny GL, Lazarus K, Smith ME, Berbee ML, Bonito G, Corradi N, Grigoriev I, Gryganskyi A, James TY, O’Donnell K, Roberson RW, Taylor TN, Uehling J, Vilgalys R, White MM, Stajich JE. 2016. A phylum-level phylogenetic classification of zygomycete fungi based on genome-scale data. Mycologia 108:1028─1046.

Walther G, Pawłowska J, Alastruey-Izquierdo A, Wrzosek M, Rodriguez-Tudela JL, Dolatabadi S, Chakrabarti A, de Hoog GS. 2013. DNA barcoding in Mucorales: an inventory of biodiversity. Persoonia 30:11–47.

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