The strategy for naming fungal ‘dark taxa’ may involve a transition period and genomics

Abstract

Many unnamed fungi have been revealed from DNA sequences but cannot be formally named due to a lack of physical materials required for the description of a taxon by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. While the mycological community generally discusses the necessity to amend the code to permit DNA sequence data as the nomenclatural type of these fungal ‘dark taxa’ (FDT), the standard of DNA sequences is mainly in debate. Here, I suggest to set an approximate fifteen years transition period. During that time, it is recommended to sequence the whole genomes of all known species and newly published species with available physical materials; meanwhile, the FDT can be provisionally named with priority using whole genome data as the type. After the transition period, these provisionally named FDT will become valid, provided no known species from physical materials with a priority can be proved to be conspecific. Moreover, in this new era of fungal taxonomy when the whole genome data will be commonly used as the crucial evidence to delimit fungal species, new taxa should be named along with the deposition of whole genome sequences in public databases, and the whole genome data may be the type of the FDT.