New additions to the fungal species of Guyana

DNA barcoding is today a standard method used for species identification, preferably in conjunction with supporting morphological data. Here, we employed DNA barcoding using the highly conserved nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region to identify a large set of dried fungal sporocarp specimens that were collected in Guyana between 1982 and 2005. Nearly half of the 551 specimen collections sampled lacked determination below family level (indets). Our study yielded 103 ITS barcode sequences and resulted in the identification of 11 species and 3 genera previously not recorded in Guyana. Thirty-three of the indets were identified to the species level and another five were identified to the generic level. None of the ITS sequences generated in this study represented potentially undescribed species. Our study highlights the importance of fungarium reference specimens as sources of reliable reference barcode sequences for accurate species identification of unknown source DNA. Future barcoding efforts would benefit greatly from utilizing a multilocus approach and next-generation sequencing platforms.