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Data from: Species delimitation in fungal endophyte diversity studies and its implications in ecological and biogeographic inferences

Cite this dataset

Gazis, Romina; Rehner, Stephen; Chaverri, Priscila (2011). Data from: Species delimitation in fungal endophyte diversity studies and its implications in ecological and biogeographic inferences [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8891

Abstract

The estimation of species diversity in fungal endophyte communities is based either on species counts or the assignment of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Consequently, the application of different species recognition criteria affects not only diversity estimates but also the ecological hypotheses that arise from those observations. The main objective of the study was to examine how the choice and number of genetic markers and species delimitation criteria influences biodiversity estimates. Here, we compare approaches to defining species boundaries in three dominant species complexes of tropical endophytes, specially Colletotrichum cf. gloeosporioides, Pestalotiopsis cf. microspora, and Trichoderma cf. harzianum, from two Amazonian trees: Hevea brasiliensis and H. guianensis. Molecular tools were used to describe and compare the diversity of the different assemblages. Multi-locus phylogenetic analyses (gpd, ITS, and tef1) and modern techniques for phylogenetic species delimitation were overlaid with ecological data to recognize putative species or OTUs. The results demonstrate that ITS alone generally underestimates the number of species predicted by other nuclear loci. These results question the use of ITS and arbitrary divergence thresholds for species delimitation.

Usage notes

Location

Cameroon
Peru