Distributional records of Antarctic fungi based on strains preserved in the Culture Collection of Fungi from Extreme Environments ( CCFEE ) Mycological Section associated with the Italian National Antarctic Museum ( MNA )

This dataset includes information regarding fungal strains collected during several Antarctic expeditions: the Italian National Antarctic Research program (PNRA) expeditions “X” (1994/1995), “XII” (1996/1997), “XVII” (2001/2002), “XIX” (2003/2004), “XXVI” (2010/2011), the Czech “IPY Expedition” (2007–2009) and a number of strains donated by E. Imre Friedmann (Florida State University) in Copyright Laura Selbmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. MycoKeys 10: 57–71 (2015) doi: 10.3897/mycokeys.10.5343 http://mycokeys.pensoft.net A peer-reviewed open-access journal


Distributional records of Antarctic fungi based on strains preserved in the Culture Collection of Fungi from Extreme Environments (CCFEE)
Mycological Section associated with the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA)

Purpose
The aim of this study is to provide new distributional data on Antarctic fungi collected in the framework of past and recent expeditions (Italian PNRA, USA and Czech expeditions) and now preserved in the Antarctic section of the Culture Collection of Fungi From Extreme Environments (CCFEE -Antarctic Fungi), a collection associated with the Italian Antarctic National Museum (MNA, Section of Genoa, Italy).CCFEE is located at the Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Mycology, Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences (DEB) of the Tuscia University (Viterbo, Italy).
The dataset is the third Italian contribution to ANTABIF based on materials stored at the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA) and in its associated collections.The first MNA dataset published regarded the distributional records of Antarctic Mollusca, collected in the framework of the Latitudinal Gradient Program (Ghiglione et al. 2013), while the second MNA dataset regarded the distributional records of Antarctic Tanaidaceans collected in the Ross Sea (Piazza et al. 2014).

Project details
Project title: Antarctic Fungi from museum samples preserved in the Culture Collection of Fungi From Extreme Environments (CCFEE -Antarctic Fungi), which is a collection associated with the Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA, Section of Genoa, Italy) hosted in the Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Mycology, Dept of Ecological and Biological Sciences (DEB), Tuscia University (Viterbo, Italy).
Funding: The fungal strains were isolated from substrata (soils, sediments, mosses, lichens and rocks) sampled as part of different research projects funded by the Italian National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) of U.S.A. and Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, as listed below: • PNRA X expedition (1994/1995) -Project 2d.1c ("Ecological and genetic aspects of population differentiation"); The collection also includes a number of strains donated by E. Imre Friedmann (Florida State University) in 2001, isolated from samples collected during the U.S. A. Antarctic Expeditions (1980-1982).
Study area description: Samples from which strains were isolated were collected in Southern and Northern Victoria Land, McMurdo Dry Valleys and the Antarctic Peninsula, from sea level up to 3400 m a.s.l.(Archambault Ridge, Antarctica).
Temporal coverage and coordinates: PNRA X expedition (1994/1995) Design description: Data were gathered by assembling distributional records of Antarctic fungal strains stored in the CCFEE.Samples from which all the strains were isolated were obtained in the framework of different past research expeditions, which had different aims and geographical targets.The main purpose of PNRA "X" expedition was to evaluate the adaptation of microfungal strains to low temperatures, thermal stress, desiccation and exposure to radiation.During the "XII", "XVII" and "XIX" PNRA expeditions, the projects aimed at collecting rock samples for studying the biology and biodiversity of fungi from cryptoendolithic communities in the sandstone formations of several continental Antarctic coastal, and inland locations and from Antarctic Peninsula, as well as their role in the alteration of the rock substrate.The project developed in the framework of the "XXVI" PNRA expedition aimed at studying responses of rock meristematic fungi to environmental stresses related with the global change, and their role in the bioaccumulation and biomagnification processes of contaminants in the trophic networks.The main purpose of the Czech expedition was to study fungal biodiversity from soil and rock samples collected in the Antarctic Peninsula.The U.S.A. expeditions aimed at studying the biology and diversity of cryptoendolithic communities of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and monitoring nanoclimate variations within the rock substrate.

Method step description:
See sampling description below and flowchart of Figure 1.

Study extent description:
The distributional data herein considered refer to 53 different locations (Figure 2a,2b,2c), located along the Victoria Land (continental Antarctica) and the Antarctic Peninsula.Samples from which fungi were isolated were collected in the framework of the following expeditions, from 1980 to 2011: • PNRA X expedition: samples of soil, mosses, lichens, rocks and sediments were collected from lake area near Camp OASI, Skua Lake, Tethys Bay, Enigma Lake, Vegetation Island, Inexpressible Island, Starr Nunatak, Edmonson Point, Baker Rocks, Kay Island, Mt Melbourne.In particular, in the site called Cryptogam Ridge, above the Mt.Melbourne volcanic cone, a small quantity of soil has been sampled for isolating thermophilic fungal strains and studying the fungal diversity of the area;     all the sandstone's formations and some granite formations of Northern Victoria Land were visited; • Czech IPY expedition: sampling was performed in the Antarctic Peninsula.Black meristematic fungi were isolated in Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic and donated to the CCFEE; The U.S.A. expeditions: aimed to study the biology and diversity of cryptoendolithic communities of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and sampling was performed in that area.Black meristematic fungi isolated were donated to the CCFEE.
Sampling description: The materials were collected by hand and, whenever needed, by using hammer and chisel in order to chop rock fragments from large boulders.. Samples were then placed in sterile plastic bags and stored at -20 °C (Figure 1).Fungi from rocks were isolated by crushing stones and plating fragments directly on Petri dishes containing Malt Agar (MA) amended with chloramphenicol 100 ppm; plates were incubated at 10 °C and growth was inspected monthly.
Isolation from lichens was performed according to Selbmann et al. (2013).Isolation from other sediments, soils, and mosses was performed by diluting 1g of each substrate in 1 l of sterile water and plating 100 µl of the suspension in a 9 cm Petri dish containing MA or Czapek dox agar (CZA).Plates were incubated at 10 and 25 °C and growth inspected every day.Colonies were transferred in fresh medium immediately after their appearance and identified by macro-and microscopic observations.Scanning electron microscopy observations were performed according to the methods described by Onofri et al. (1980).When morphology was not informative enough for identification, the isolates were studied with a molecular approach according to Selbmann et al. (2005;2008).Fungi were identified by Selbmann, Onofri, Zucconi and Isola.
All the isolates are preserved in the Culture Collection of Fungi from Extreme Environments (CCFEE).All the fungi are preserved as living (at 4 °C), frozen (at -80 °C) or freeze-dried cultures, or as dry samples.Holotype materials are deposited at: CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre (Utrecht, Netherlands); Industrial Yeasts Collection (Perugia, Italy); German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (Brunswick, Germany); International Mycological Institute (London, United Kingdom) (Table .1).Ex-types of newly described taxa are preserved in the CCFEE.
The present dataset of Antarctic fungi has been formatted in order to fulfil Darwin Core standards required by the IPT scheme, according the GBIF Data Toolkit (http:// www.gbif.org/resources/2573).The dataset was uploaded in the ANTABIF database (the geospatial component of GBIF).
Quality control description: Strains were identified by both morphological and molecular tools.DNA sequence data obtained from the studied strains are deposited in Mycobank and GenBank.Species names were crosschecked and made consistent with current ones as reported in MycoBank (last check made on 2015.08.04) (Figure 1).Distributional records' geographical coordinates are as published in the different papers reported in the reference section.During the more recent expeditions (XIX and XXVI) the coordinates were recorded using a Garmin GPS.

Taxonomic coverage
General taxonomic coverage description: Fungal assemblages in Antarctic rocks have been extensively studied with particular emphasis for free-living but also symbiotic fungal populations, which constitute an important part of epilithic and endolithic communities (Selbmann et al. 2014).The interest for these communities is strongly connected to their high adaptability to the Antarctic ice-free environmental conditions, a combination of extremely low temperatures, low water activity, oligotrophy and high solar irradiation; for these reasons they constitute a useful model for studying evolution and adaptations to extreme environments.On the whole, this dataset takes into account 259 fungal strains, out of the 486 available at CCFEE.This initial dataset corresponds to the species that have been well characterized from a taxonomic point of view and have all the metadata required by Darwin Core for publication as distributional records.They belong to three Divisions, i.e.Ascomycota, Basidiomycota and Mucoromycotina (Figure 3), corresponding to a total of 32 genera (Figure 4) and 38 species.Among them, the 93% belong to Ascomycota Phylum, that includes the almost totality of genera and the totality of new taxa present in the collection (12 species and 6 genera) (Table 1).One basidiomycetous new species, isolated from soil under moss in Kay Island, Cryptococcus vaughanmartiniae Turchetti, Blanchette & Arenz (CCFEE5495=DBVPG5862), was recently described (Turchetti et al. 2015).

Natural collections description
Parent collection identifier: Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA Section of Genoa, Italy), and Antarctic Section of the Culture Collection of Fungi from Extreme Environments (CCFEE), Mycological Section of MNA, Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Mycology, Dept of Ecological and Biological Sciences (DEB), Tuscia University (Viterbo, Italy).
Collection name: MNA (Section of Genoa) associated collection of Culture Collection of Fungi From Extreme Environments (CCFEE) -Antarctic Fungi Collection identifier: http://www.mna.it;http://www.sma.unitus.it/Specimen preservation method: Strains are stored and maintained as living cultures on Agar slant at 4 °C, frozen at -80 °C, freeze dried, or as dry samples.

Datasets
Dataset description: This dataset contains data from the Kingdom Fungi, Division Ascomycota, Basidiomycota and Mucoromycotina, from Victoria Land.In total it includes 38 different species of fungi for a total of 259 individuals.The Darwin Core elements included in the dataset are: catalogue number (i.e.MNA catalogue number), scientific name, expedition/station, gear, date collected, decimal latitude, decimal longitude, depth, individual count, institution code (i.e.name of institution where the samples are kept), collection code (i.e.MNA acronym) and status.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Flowchart depicting major steps in dataset development and publishing.

Figure 2b .
Figure 2b.Map of sampling stations.Zoom for the Antarctic Peninsula area.

Figure 2c .
Figure 2c.Map of sampling stations.Zoom for the Ross Sea area.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Taxonomic coverage (percentage per Division) of MNA Fungi Collection Object name: MNA (Section of Genoa) associated collection of CCFEE (Tuscia University) -Antarctic Fungi Character encoding: UTF-8 Format name: Darwin Core Archive format Format version: 1.0 Distribution: http://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource.do?r=aaa Language: English Metadata language: English License of use: This dataset [MNA (Section of Genoa) associated collection of CCFEE (Tuscia University) -Antarctic Fungi] is made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution License: http://www.opendatacommons.org/license/by/1.0Date of metadata creation: April 8, 2015 Hierarchy level: Dataset

Table 1 .
List of Ex-types in the CCFEE associated collection of MNA with others collection codes referred to strains obtained from the holotypes' ones.Culture Collection of Fungi from Extreme Environments (Antarctic Fungi associated collection of MNA, Section of Genoa, University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy); MNA = Antarctic National Museum (MNA, Section of Genoa, Italy); CBS =