Bringing Order to Fungal Taxonomy: A Modern Framework for Eurotiales

FABI researchers Prof. Cobus Visagie, Dr Neriman Yilmaz, and Nicole van Vuuren, together with international collaborators, have published a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the fungal order Eurotiales, which includes the economically important genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Talaromyces.

Their paper, titled "From chaos to tranquility: A modern approach to the identification, nomenclature and phylogeny of Aspergillus, Penicillium and other Eurotiales, including an updated accepted species list", addresses long-standing challenges in fungal taxonomy. This study reviews species described since 2023, updates accepted species lists and introduces a curated DNA sequence database to support accurate identification and species descriptions.

Of the 171 recently described species, 130 were accepted, while 41 were reduced to synonyms. The updated list now includes 1,393 accepted species across four families and 26 genera, with Penicillium (598 species), Aspergillus (465) and Talaromyces (236) representing the most speciose genera. At the heart of this work is a valuable DNA sequence reference database containing 18,837 sequences from 5,325 strains, covering DNA barcode markers (ITS, BenA, CaM, and RPB2). This resource is freely available (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16605949) and will be continuously updated to reflect the latest information available on Eurotiales.

The authors emphasize the adoption of a phylogenetic species concept for delimiting taxa, while still recognizing the value of phenotypic data when describing new species. This updated framework and open resource will promote research excellence in the taxonomy of fungi.

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