The actual collection that has been cultured and subsequently sequenced. Photo credit: Christoffer Bugge Harder and Thomas Læssøe.

The genome of Mycena alexandri was sequenced as part of the Mycenaceae sequencing project and the overarching JGI 1000 Fungal Genomes project “Deep Sequencing of Ecologically-relevant Dikarya“ (CSP 1974). This project will examine members of the Mycena genus to evaluate the genomic basis of their different nutritional modes.

Mycena alexandri (no English name) is a member of the Filipedes section (Maas Geesteranus 1988). It is a rare species known predominantly from high Northern latitudes in Canada, Alaska and North Scandinavia (Aronsen and Læssøe 2016), though a single record is apparently known from Spain.

On small twigs, debris and litter under Salix species, in Betula forests in alpine areas, also known from coniferous heath forest in Finland. The specimens from which the sequenced culture was derived were collected under Salix lapponum in the subarctic tundra environment of the Hardangervidda National Park the 8th of August 2016. M. alexandri was originally described from North America (Singer 1961), and Aronsen and Gulden (2007) has assigned the European members of this species to a different species (”M. aphanes”) based on the morphology. However, subsequent sequence analysis did indeed suggest the Old and New World collections to be conspecific (Aronsen and Larsson 2015).

Pileus 4-13 mm across, acutely conical in young stages, becoming broadly conical with age, sometimes with a small umbo or papilla, sulcate, translucent-striate or not striate, pruinose, glabrescent, fulvous, usually with a dark yellow-brown centre, somewhat paler at the margin, drying to yellowish brown; sometimes with a pink hue. Odour of iodoform when drying. Lamellae 13-16 reaching the stipe, ascending, narrowly adnate, not decurrent with a tooth, yellowish to pale fulvous, sometimes with a pink tinge. Stipe 25-65 x 0.5-1 mm, somewhat firm, hollow, terete, equal, straight to somewhat flexuous, pruinose, glabrescent, fulvous to brownish, often fairly dark, the base densely covered with long, coarse, flexuous, whitish fibrils.

M. alexandri is a psychrophilic specialist species that we will be sequencing for studying its adaptation to cold and harsh alpine and subarctic environments.

This genome was derived from dikaryotic (diploid) pure culture on MEA agar with ampicilin and benomyl and should be free of xenobiotic contaminations. Researchers who wish to use data from unpublished Mycena genomes for publication are respectfully required to contact the PI and JGI to avoid potential conflicts on data use and coordinate other publications with the Mycena master paper(s).

References

Aronsen A, Gulden G. 2007. Two new species of Mycena from alpine sites in Norway. Mycol. Progress 6: 1–6.

Aronsen A, Larsson E (2015).: Studier i släktet Mycena (hättor). Svensk Mykologisk Tidskrift 36 (3).

Aronsen, A.; Læssøe, T.: The genus Mycena s.l. in The Fungi of Northern Europe, vol. 5. (2016).

Maas Geesteranus, R. A. (1988): Conspectus of the Mycenas of the Northern Hemisphere. Proc. Kon. Ned. Akad. v. Wetensch. (Ser. C).

Singer, R. (1961) Diagnoses fungorum novorum Agaricalium II. Sydowia 15(1-6):63.