Five novel anamorphic, ascomycetous yeast species associated with mushrooms and soil

Five novel yeast species belonging to the Kodamaea clade are proposed in this paper based on nine strains isolated from mushrooms and soil in Taiwan between 2007 and 2008. These nine yeast strains were found to represent five novel yeast species based on their D1/D2 domain sequences of the large subunit (LSU) rRNA gene and physiological characteristics. Sequence analysis of the D1/D2 domain of the LSU rRNA gene revealed that the five species are phylogenetically related to Kodamaea and Candida sp. clustered into the Kodamaea clade in the phylogenetic tree. All the species reproduced asexually, and no ascospores could be found. Therefore, the scientific names of Candida alishanica sp. nov., Candida hsintzibuensis sp. nov., Candida kaohsiungensis sp. nov., Candida lidongshanica sp. nov., and Candida smagusa sp. nov. were proposed to accommodate these strains. Strains of the first species were discovered from soil; two strains of the second species were isolated from soil and the fruiting body of a mushroom, respectively; and strains of the latter three species were recovered from fruiting bodies of mushrooms. The type strains are listed as follows: C. alishanica GY43S11T(=CBS 11429T=BCRC 23188T); C. hsintzibuensis EJ7S06T(=CBS 11427T=BCRC 23183T); C. kaohsiungensis GJ10M01T(=CBS 11435T=BCRC 23197T); C. lidongshanica SD5S01T(=CBS 11426T=BCRC 23191T); and C. smagusa EN4M03T(=CBS 11430T=BCRC 23186T).