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One of the great unexplored realms of mycology in our time is the functional development of morphology, such as how a mushroom is produced.
L. tigirinus serves as a fascinating model for studying morphological development. Species within Lentinus produce pilate stipitate, gilled tissue in their sporocarp. However, taxonomically, they fall into the Order Polyporales, which are primarily thought of as having Corticioid and pored sporocarps (E.g. Ganoderma and Fomitopsis). Furthermore, L. tigirinus forms two morphological variants within its North American distribution, one "agaricoid" (gills exposed to environment) and the other secotioid (gills enclosed, similar to truffles morphology).
For my post-doctoral research, I am working in the lab of Dr. David Hibbett and Dr. Javier Tabima, where I am studying the systematics, functional genetics, and population structures of the gilled, and sometimes secotioid, polypore mushroom, Lentinus tigrinus.
L. tigrinus Secotoid vs. Agaricoid
Comparisons of both morphologies found in the North American populations of L. tigrinus.
Image Credit: Thomas Roehl
L. fimbriatus(=L. tigrinus) Type
There is no physical material for Lentinus tirinus, just an Iconotype, usually a painting or drawing (as shown above) of the original specimen.
Image Credit: Alexander Bradshaw, Specimen from The Royal Botanic Gardens, KEW
Secotioid L. tigrinus from
Specimen expanding known secotioid forms to as far south as Peru.
Image Credit: Alexander Bradshaw, specimen from the Field museum collection (F)
One of the first steps in unraveling the cryptic speciation in Lentinus is disentangling the evolutionary history of closely related clades. Without a strong understanding of the evolutionary relatedness and history of one taxon to another, we lack the predictive power to investigate unique characteristics, such as the phenomena of "Agaricoid" and "Secotioid" morphology in L. tigrinus. Currently, Lentinus tigers is known to have a semi-global distribution, with large populations primarily found in North America and Across the European continent. Despite this, Secotioid morphologies are only known from North and South America.
Early molecular studies have suggested that L. tigrinus may be at least two closely related species, which has been further confirmed through genomic sequencing of museum specimens across both major populations (see below). With a clear understanding of this evolutionary history, we can now be confident in studying the unique morphological traits of our North American "tigrinus", as well as narrowing down the environment in which this trait has been selected for.
More work remains to be done, so stay tuned for updates!
First preliminary phylogenetic and phylogenomic comparison of Lentinus section tigrini, showing clear phylogenetic separation of North American and European distributed L. tigrinus.
For more information, see the project website at The Lentinus Project!
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