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Type: Article
Published: 2016-10-27
Page range: 119–128
Abstract views: 40
PDF downloaded: 79

A new record of Tricholoma caligatum (Tricholomataceae) from North Africa with a discussion of related species

Département de Biotechnologie, Faculté des Sciences, Université des Sciences de la Nature et de la Vie, Université Ahmed Benbella d’Oran 1, Algeria Département de Biotechnologie végétale, Faculté de la Nature et de la Vie, Université des Sciences et Technologie d’Oran Mohammed Boudiaf, Algeria
MycSA, INRA, CS 20032, 33882 Villenave d’Ornon, France
Département de Biotechnologie, Faculté des Sciences, Université des Sciences de la Nature et de la Vie, Université Ahmed Benbella d’Oran 1, Algeria
INRA, CS 20032, 33882 Villenave d’Ornon, France
fungal taxonomy phylogeny polyphyly species hypothesis Fungi

Abstract

Among the Basidiomycota, matsutake are the most appreciated mushrooms in Japan. Some Tricholoma species belonging to matsutake group are exported from North Africa to Japan. Until the beginning of the 21st century, the North African ‘matsutake’ was identified as T. caligatum, which is a circum-Mediterranean species described in 1834. However, recent molecular analyses uncover some North African isolates as T. anatolicum, which is a species described from Turkey in 2003. As a result, the presence of T. caligatum in North Africa remained to be confirmed. We analyzed a recent specimen collected in Algeria from mixed forest and based on molecular and morphological data, we found that it belongs to T. caligatum, indicating the existence of two species in North Africa. Morphological traits and molecular markers are proposed here to easily distinguish these two species from each other. The concept of both the species and their respective geographic distributions are discussed.