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A new species of cellular slime mold from southern Portugal based on morphology, ITS and SSU sequences

     Systematic Botany, Uppsala University, Norbyvagen 18D SE-752 36, Uppsala, Sweden

J.C. Cavender

     Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701

Sampling soils to look for dictyostelids in southern Portugal we found an isolate that has a morphology that differed from any previously described species of the group. We sequenced the internally transcribed spacer (ITS) and small subunit (SSU) genes of the nuclear ribosomal RNA and found that both sequences are distinct from all previously described sequences. Phylogenetic analyses place the new species in dictyostelid Group 3 (Rhizostelids) together with D. potamoides, with which it shares 65.8% identity for ITS and 96.6% for SSU. In this paper we describe a new species of cellular slime mold, Dictyostelium ibericum, based on morphological and molecular characters. It is a small species with polar granules in its spores.

Key words: cellular slime molds, Europe, molecular data, morphology, taxonomy