Spores Among Feathers: Evaluating Fungal Diversity in Taxidermized Birds and the Discovery of a New Species

Fungal organisms play a major role in the contamination and biodeterioration of natural history museum collections and cultural heritage as a whole, leading to the potential loss of key knowledge preserved by these. As part of the ongoing efforts to study the fungal contaminations observed in the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra (Portugal) collections, eight taxidermized birds were sampled and 27 fungal isolates were retrieved. A comprehensive analysis of these isolates led to the identification of 14 different species belonging to 13 different genera, namely Arcopilus, Aspergillus, Beauveria, Cladosporium, Coprinellus, Hyphodermella, Mycoaciella, Neokalmusia, Paraeutypella, Paramicrodochium, Penicillium, Periconia and Talaromyces. Among these, two isolates assigned to the Periconia genus did not match any known species and were therefore thoroughly studied through an integrative analysis based on a multi-locus phylogeny of a combined dataset of ITS rDNA, LSU, SSU, TEF1α, and RPB2, along with morphological characteristics. Based on the data obtained from this study, we propose a new addition to this genus, Periconia callaina sp. nov. This discovery provides further insight into the fungal diversity present in natural history museums and the communities that colonize and threaten our cultural heritage.