Phylogeny, identification and nomenclature of the genusAspergillus

Abstract

Aspergilluscomprises a diverse group of species based on morphological, physiological and phylogenetic characters, which significantly impact biotechnology, food production, indoor environments and human health.Aspergilluswas traditionally associated with nine teleomorph genera, but phylogenetic data suggest that together with genera such asPolypaecilum,Phialosimplex,DichotomomycesandCristaspora,Aspergillusforms a monophyletic clade closely related toPenicillium. Changes in the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants resulted in the move to one name per species, meaning that a decision had to be made whether to keepAspergillusas one big genus or to split it into several smaller genera. The International Commission ofPenicilliumandAspergillusdecided to keepAspergillusinstead of using smaller genera. In this paper, we present the arguments for this decision. We introduce new combinations for accepted species presently lacking anAspergillusname and provide an updated accepted species list for the genus, now containing 339 species. To add to the scientific value of the list, we include information about living ex-type culture collection numbers and GenBank accession numbers for available representative ITS, calmodulin, β-tubulin andRPB2sequences. In addition, we recommend a standard working technique forAspergillusand propose calmodulin as a secondary identification marker.