Aspergillus atacamensis and A. salisburgensis: two new halophilic species from hypersaline/arid habitats with a phialosimplex-like morphology

Halophilic fungal strains isolated from historical wooden staircase in a salt mine in Austria, and from wall biofilm and soil of a cave in the Coastal Range of the hyperarid Atacama Desert in Chile were characterised and described newly as Aspergillus salisburgensis and Aspergillus atacamensis . Morphological characters including solitary phialides producing solitary conidia and conidia in chains and/or heads suggested affinity to Aspergillus subgenus Polypaecilum . Strains required salt for growth, grew optimally on media with 10–25% NaCl and at 15–28 °C. These values are similar to those observed for Aspergillus salinarus comb. nov. ( Phialosimplex salinarum ), while the ex-type strains of Aspergillus sclerotialis , Aspergillus chlamydosporus and Aspergillus caninus (all belonging to Aspergillus subgen. Polypaecilum ) grew optimally at 0–5% NaCl and showed fastest growth at 28–37 °C. Phylogenetic analyses on the basis of rDNA sequences, RAPD-PCR fingerprint patterns, and cellobiohydrolase gene ( cbh -I) polymorphism clustered the strains into three groups and supported their taxonomic recognition as A. salinarus , A. atacamensis and A. salisburgensis . On the basis of phylogenetic inferences, also Sagenomella keratitidis is newly combined as Aspergillus keratitidis and inferred as a species of Aspergillus subgenus Polypaecilum.