Glomeromycota TAXONOMY

Please note: There are many genera and species published, recently, some unfortunately forcing splits into more and more monospecific and/or problematic genera. The community has to make up its own opinion, and may wonder about some editors and their policies.

We do not adopt the suggested systematics placing of AMF in the 'Glomeromycotina', because the phylum level may eventually be resurrected. To our opinion the merging of many of the high-ranking 'basal lineages' fungal taxa in one phylum is not consistent with the taxonomy of the best investigated fungal clade, the Dikarya. One could perhaps have erected a new superphylum, maybe as Zygomycota (which were entirely discarded as a taxon) to host several ancestral fungi phyla. At least in comparison to the Dikarya (Ascomycota / Basidiomycota) this had been reasonable, but it also had been a good way to keep the established taxon 'Zygomycota' and the AMF would than have become a member of the zygomycetes - without too many changes and as a nice compromise with the classical taxon-use. As names above the rank of family are not governed by priority in the Botanical Code, you are free to use whichever name you prefer, above family rank. Remember: up to (including) family level, the Botanical Code is binding and has to be followed!

Some questionable taxa published had been corrected (for discussions see, e.g., Redecker D, Schüßler A, Stockinger H, Stürmer SL, Morton JB, Walker C (2013) An evidence-based consensus for the classification of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Glomeromycota). Mycorrhiza 23: 515-531 [doi: 10.1007/s00572-013-0486-y]; Schüßler A, Walker C (2010) The Glomeromycota. A species list with new families and new genera. A. Schüßler & C. Walker, Gloucester [full text PDF]; Morton JB, Msiska Z (2010) Phylogenies from genetic and morphological characters do not support a revision of Gigasporaceae (Glomeromycota) into four families and five genera. Mycorrhiza 20:483-496 [doi: 10.1007/s00572-010-0303-9].Bills and Morton 2015, Redecker et al. 2013, Schüßler and Walker 2010). We indicate some problems, in the table linked below. There is more recent taxa, from the last decade, some are good, some are not.

Please note that we have setup the linked table as a Google-sheet, just click on the button below to open it in a new window. If there is any issues, please inform us.