Unveiling species diversity within early-diverging fungi from China III: Six new species and a new record of Gongronella (Cunninghamellaceae, Mucoromycota).

Gongronella had accommodated only two species for more than half a century and as many as 17 new species have been described in this genus since 2015. However, no systematic studies were conducted for this genus so far. The distribution, substrate and morphology of all known species in Gongronella are analysed herein. Meanwhile, with the support of phylogenetic and morphological evidence, six new species (G.abortosporangia sp. nov., G.apophysata sp. nov., G.bawanglingensis sp. nov., G.inconstans sp. nov., G.pingtangensis sp. nov. and G.reniformis sp. nov.) are proposed and G.pamphilae is recorded from China for the first time. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using ITS+LSU+TEF+ACT+RPB1 and the results were basically the same as ITS+LSU. All species of Gongronella, except G.namwonensis from fresh water, were isolated from soil. The genus is distributed worldwide, mainly in tropical and subtropical regions. A synoptic key is provided for a total of 24 species (18 species previously published and six species newly described herein), except for G.banzhaoae due to unavailable protologue, type and living culture. No morphologies were described when G.pamphilae was proposed. Thanks to the strains isolated in this study, G.pamphilae is included in the key and reported as a Chinese new record. This is the first comprehensive taxonomy and phylogeny of the genus Gongronella.