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Abstract Detail



Ecology/Pathology

Osmundson, Todd [1], Bergemann, Sarah [2], Garbelotto, Matteo [3].

Biogeography and biodiversity assessment of macrofungi of Moorea, French Polynesia.

Although environmental DNA sequencing holds great promise for characterizing diversity and biogeography of fungi, standard approaches (e.g., distance clustering and/or BLAST searches), are generally neither corroborated with other methods nor corrected for geographic biases in GenBank. We describe the first comprehensive study of plant-associated macrofungi in the South Pacific using 440 voucher-anchored DNA sequences to examine ecological and biogeographic trends for a largely unknown biota (Moorea, French Polynesia) using computational methods including character-based assignment, distance clustering, BLAST, and null models to: (1) assess macrofungal diversity; (2) infer the biogeographic role of regional- vs. long-distance dispersal; (3) characterize habitat-level ecology; and (4) compare morphological and molecular richness estimates. Similarity clustering yielded more close (> 98%) matches than BLAST, though neither succeeded for more than 60% of samples. Sequence-based OTU assignments produced higher richness estimates than rapid morphological assessments. Lowland forests harbor most macrofungal diversity, though several other habitats appear undersampled. When both genetic similarity and geographic bias in GenBank are considered, Moorea strongly exhibits regional rather than long-distance biogeography. Our results, while identifying the challenges in using DNA sequences to characterize unknown biotas, also illustrate the major potential of such studies to improve the utility of sequence reference databases.


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1 - University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, Biology, La Crosse, WI, 54601, USA
2 - Middle Tennessee State University, Biology, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132 , USA
3 - University of California, Berkeley, Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

Keywords:
none specified

Presentation Type: Offered Paper - Paper
Session: 11
Location: Room 103 AB/Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center
Date: Tuesday, June 10th, 2014
Time: 10:45 AM
Number: 11002
Abstract ID:207
Candidate for Awards:None


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