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Phlebopus sp. FC_14
The locale from where the species came. Photo by Jonathan Plett.

Phlebopus sp. FC_14:

New Caledonia, a series of islands located in the South West Pacific Ocean, is recognized as one of the major biodiversity hotspots of the world. The soils that support such a diverse range of plants and fungi are also unique in the fact that they are generally serpentine with naturally high levels of different heavy metals.  Within this context, different fungal isolates have been studied and found to be heavy metal tolerant and able to grow in conditions of very low nutrient availability.  Phlebopus sp. FC_14, a genus found within the Boletales, was isolated from one of the islands off of Noure, New Caledonia in an area of degraded forest. 

The Boletales (Agaricomycetes) is one major group of mushroom-forming fungi. This order contains about six suborders, over 12 families and approximately 1000 described species. The Boletales includes species with diverse nutrition modes, such as wood-rot, soil saprotroph, mycoparasite, and ectomycorrhizal biotroph. Investigating the evolution of nutrition mode and symbiotic lifestyle in this order could provide new insights into the diversity of mechanisms for the mycorrhizal symbioses.

The genus Phlebopus of the family Boletinellaceae is a tropical genus which can distribute from Old World to New World. Although the species in this group are mainly saprotrophic, Phlebopus portentosus was reported to harbour two nutrition modes, namely saprotroph and ectomycorrhizal biotroph. Therefore, broader sampling and deeper digging into their genomes and transcriptomes could greatly contribute to uncovering the genomic basis of adaptive evolution of lifestyle in boletes.

Genome Reference(s)