Evaluation of the monophyly of Fomitopsis using parsimony and MCMC methods

To evaluate the monophyly of Fomitopsis and elucidate phylogenetic relationships of its members, partial nuclear large subunit (partial 28S) ribosomal RNA genes were sequenced from 10 species of Fomitopsis and 15 related species. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that Fomitopsis was phylogenetically heterogeneous and its members were divided into three subgroups. The constrained tree excluding E palustris (the type species of Pilatoporus) from Fomitopsis core group was rejected, thus rejecting the taxonomic concept to segregate Pilatoporus from Tomitopsis. The monophyly of taxa belonging to E rosea complex was rejected, thus rejecting the complex definition based on morphological similarities. The exclusion of Piptoporus betulinus (the type species of Piptoporus) from Fomitopsis core group was rejected and Piptoporus proved to be heterogeneous in both best MP and MAT trees. The monophyly of F. officinalis with Fomilopsis core group also was rejected. Fomitopsis officinalis was closely related to Antrodia xantha and formed an independent lineage from Fomilopsis core group at the basal position of brown rotting fungi comprising Antrodia, Daedalea, Fomitopsis, Piptoporus and Postia. The MAP tree topology obtained from MCMC computation of Bayesian inference was similar to the one of the best MP tree based on the parsimony analysis but showed a higher likelihood score in the Kishino-Hasegawa test and reflected better evolutionary patterns for the phylogeny of Fomitopsis.