Fungalpedia – Note 2359, Umbelopsidaceae

 

Umbelopsidaceae. W. Gams & W. Mey.

Citation when using this data: Yuan HS et al. 2020 – Fungalpedia, Mucoromycota.

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank

Classification: Umbelopsidales, Incertae sedis, Umbelopsidomycetes, Mucoromycotina, Mucoromycota, Fungi

 

Notes: The taxonomy of Umbelopsidaceae has been extensively discussed in recent decades, and almost half of the genus Umbelopsis (the only genus in Umbelopsidaceae) taxa were initially described as Mortierella Coem. [e.g. M. isabellina (Oudem.) W. Gams, M. vinacea Dixon-Stew., M. nana (Linnem.) Arx, M. ramanniana var. autotrophica E.H. Evans,
M roseonana W. Gams & Gleeson and M. ovata H.Y. Yip], while some were described as Mucor Fresen. [e.g. M. ramannianus Möller = Mortierella ramanniana (Möller) Linnem.] (Wang et al. 2015). According to Sugiyama et al. (2003), two morphological criteria were essential for the transfer of specimens from Mortierella to Umbelopsis: 1 – the small but distinct columellae formed in Umbelopsis did not correspond to the absent or extremely reduced columellae of other species of Mortierella; 2 – the absence of zygospores in Umbelopsis. At the time, Umbelopsis taxa were classified into the sections Mortierella pusilla Oudem. and M. isabellina, the subgenus Micromucor Malchevsk. and the genera Micromucor and Umbelopsis. Meyer and Gams (2003) included all the taxa of Micromucor in Umbelopsis, based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis, including sequences from the rDNA ITS-1 region.

 

Type genus: Umbelopsis Amos & H.L. Barnett, Mycologia 58(5): 807 (1966)

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Umbelopsidaceae.

 

References

Meyer W, Gams W (2003) Delimitation of Umbelopsis (Mucorales, Umbelopsidaceae fam. nov.) based on ITS sequence and RFLP data. Mycol Res 107 (3):339–350

Sugiyama M, Tokumasu S, Gams W (2003) Umbelopsis gibberispora sp. nov. from Japanese leaf litter and a clarification of Micromucor ramannianus var. angulisporus. Mycoscience 44:217–226

Wang YN, Liu XY, Zheng RY (2015) Umbelopsis longicollis comb. nov. and the synonymy of U. roseonana and U. versiformis with U. nana. Mycologia 107:1023–1032

 

Entry by

Hai-Sheng Yuan, CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110164, People’s Republic of China, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

 

Published online 30 April 2026

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