#Morchella galilaea hawaii series#

True morels (Morchella spp., Morchellaceae, Ascomycota) are widely regarded as a highly prized delicacy and are of great economic and scientific value. Problems and loopholes in the academic publishing system are also identified and discussed, and additional quality controls in the pre- and post-publication stages are proposed.

#Morchella galilaea hawaii series#

Using this paper as a case study, we provide a critical review on the pitfalls of Morchella systematics followed by a series of recommendations for the delimitation of species, description of taxa, and ultimately for a sustainable taxonomy in Morchella. Although the paper was eventually retracted by Scientific Reports in 2021, the fact that such an overtly flawed and scientifically unsound paper was published in a high-ranked Q1 journal raises alarming questions about quality controls and safekeeping procedures in scholarly publishing. The paper, entitled “High diversity of Morchella and a novel lineage of the esculenta clade from the north Qinling Mountains revealed by GCPSR-based study” by Phanpadith and colleagues, suffered from gross methodological errors, included false results and artifactual phylogenies, had misapplied citations throughout, and proposed a new species name invalidly. In late 2019, a paper published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports raised serious concerns about the taxonomic stability of the genus, but also about the future of academic publishing. Although significant progress in Morchella systematics has been achieved in the past decade, several problems remain unresolved and taxonomy in the genus is still in flux. The genus Morchella has gone through turbulent taxonomic treatments. This study provided valuable information for the isolation and culturing of some beneficial microbes for morel cultivation in further study and, potentially, to harness the power of the microbiome to improve morel production and health. In contrast, in soils with low or no morel yield, some pathogenic fungi accounted for a high proportion, including Gibberella, Microidium, Penicillium, Sarocladium, Streptomyces, and Trichoderma. In co-occurrence networks, some noteworthy bacterial microbes involved in nitrogen fixation and nitrification have been identified in soils with high morel yields, such as Arthrobacter, Bradyhizobium, Devosia, Pseudarthrobacter, Pseudolabrys, and Nitrospira. This means that, after about one year of stopping sowing, the component and structure of soil that once cultivated morel would be restored. The results also showed that there were no significant differences in soil microbial communities between OC (bare soil) and OO (after one-year suspension of sowing).

Based on ITS and 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing, the alpha diversity analysis indicated that the biodiversity of morel cultivation soil showed a downward trend compared with the bare soil.

To explore the characteristics of soil microbial communities on morel cultivation, and evaluate whether these microbes are related to morel production, we collected 23 soil samples from four counties in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces, China. True morels (Morchella, Pezizales) cultivated in soil are subject to complex influences from soil microbial communities.