Novel soil-inhabiting clades fill gaps in the fungal tree of life

BACKGROUND: Fungi are a diverse eukaryotic group of degraders, pathogens, and symbionts, with many lineages known only from DNA sequences in soil, sediments, air, and water. RESULTS: We provide rough phylogenetic placement and principal niche analysis for >40 previously unrecognized fungal groups at the order and class level from global soil samples based on combined 18S (nSSU) and 28S (nLSU) rRNA gene sequences. Especially, Rozellomycota (Cryptomycota), Zygomycota s.lat, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota are rich in novel fungal lineages, most of which exhibit distinct preferences for climate and soil pH. CONCLUSIONS: This study uncovers the great phylogenetic richness of previously unrecognized order- to phylum-level fungal lineages. Most of these rare groups are distributed in different ecosystems of the world but exhibit distinct ecological preferences for climate or soil pH. Across the fungal kingdom, tropical and non-tropical habitats are equally likely to harbor novel groups. We advocate that a combination of traditional and high-throughput sequencing methods enable efficient recovery and phylogenetic placement of such unknown taxonomic groups. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40168-017-0259-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.