Eurotiales is one of the most diverse orders of fungi and includes genera such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Paecilomyces and Talaromyces. Species identification in these speciose genera has been very difficult in the past. Recent taxonomic and nomenclatural studies have modernised the morphology-based classifications to the extent that these genera now have one of the most modern taxonomies of all fungi
Houbraken & Samson (2011) revised the taxonomy of Trichocomaceae and classified the species into three families: Aspergillaceae (Aspergillus, Hamigera, Leiothecium, Monascus, Penicilliopsis, Penicillium, Phialomyces, Sclerocleista, Warcupiella and Xeromyces), Thermoascaceae (Byssochlamys/Paecilomyces and Thermoascus) and Trichocomaceae (Rasamsonia, Sagenomella, Talaromyces, Thermomyces, and Trichocoma).
In the following years, accepted species lists for Aspergillus, Penicillium and Talaromyces were published (Samson et al. 2014, Visagie et al. 2014, Yilmaz et al. 2014), representing the first modern lists for fungi to incorporate DNA sequence data into decision-making. Several recommendations were made, from how to work with these genera or describe new species to the procedures required to identify strains more precisely, including the use of the recommended DNA barcode markers β-tubulin (BenA; for Penicillium and Talaromyces) or calmodulin (CaM; for Aspergillus).
Houbraken et al. (2020) updated the accepted species lists of Aspergillus (increased from 339 to 446 species), Penicillium (increased from 354 to 483 species), Talaromyces (increased from 88 to 171 species) and expanded the list to include other Eurotiales (but excluding Elaphomycetaceae).The taxonomic situation os now stabilised with recent taxonomic and nomenclatural revisions that modernised Aspergillus, Penicillium and Talaromyces. This was mainly due to the availability of curated accepted species lists and the publication of comprehensive DNA sequence reference datasets. This has also led to a sharp increase in the number of new species described each year with the accepted species lists in turn also needing regular updates. Recently 160 species described between the last list of accepted species published in 2020 until December 2022 was reviewed (Visagioe atl., 2024 in press).
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