Poster #6

Phylogenomics of invasive Amanita muscaria in South Africa
D. L. NARH MENSAH, B. ALLEN, I. BARNES, C. BIVINS, S. BREWER, C. BRYAN, S. BUTHELEZI, J. CLARK, M. P. A. COETZEE, L. CORBY, C. DEWING, M. DROTT, T. DUONG, S. FUQUA, M. HARRIS, J. D. HOEKSEMA, D. JOHNSON, K. KOPOTSA, F. LANE, K. LYNN, M. MULLER, G. NICKLES, A. NIEUWOUDT, M. NÚÑEZ, N. PHAM, A. PRINGLE, M. SOLIS, C. STOKES, N. VARGAS, R. VILGALYS, J. WALLACE, Y-W. WANG, B. D. WINGFIELD, M. J. WINGFIELD, AND TAYLOR ZALLEK

CSIR-Food Research Institute, P. O. Box M20, Accra, Ghana

Reconstructing the history of introduced species presents a major challenge in fungal invasion biology. Together, plants and their fungal symbionts have been transported around the globe for centuries, resulting in invasive populations having been established for hundreds of years. The Amanita muscaria species complex has been introduced globally, but in many places its origin remains an open question. To start to unravel this mystery, specimens of A. muscaria were collected from South Africa and locations in Europe and the U.S., resulting in a total of 25 samples. After DNA extraction, the genomes were analyzed in South Africa during an NSF funded plant-fungal co-invasions workshop. Multiple genes from our genomes, along with previously published sequences, were used to construct a phylogenetic tree. We hypothesized a European origin for the introduced populations of A. muscaria in South Africa due to the country’s long history of plantation forestry. Our phylogenetic analyses strongly supported our hypothesis and confirmed our suspicions of South African A. muscaria originating from populations in Europe. Our study provides new insights into the history of A. muscaria’s nearly global distribution and opens the door for new questions about the ecology and evolution of this species in its introduced ranges.