Screening of Phosphate-Solubilizing Fungi From Air and Soil in Yunnan, China: Four Novel Species in , , , and .

Phosphate-solubilizing fungi (PSF) play an important role in increasing the bioavailability of phosphorus in soils for plants. Thirteen fungal strains, one collected from air and 12 from soil, were screened and described here in detail. These fungal strains were tested for their ability to solubilize tricalcium phosphate (TCP) on both solid and liquid Pikovskaya (PVK) media . The airborne fungal strain KUMCC 18-0196 ( sp. nov.) showed the most significant phosphate solubilizing activity on a solid PVK medium with the solubilization index (SI) (2.58 ± 0.04 cm) and the highest solubilized phosphates (1523.33 ± 47.87 μg/mL) on a liquid PVK medium. To the best of our knowledge, sp. nov. is the first phosphate-solubilizing fungus reported from air. We also provide the identification especially for , and , generally reported as PSF. It is important to not only screen for PSF but also identify species properly so that researchers have a clearer taxonomic picture for identifying potential taxa for future plant growth-promoting applications. Herein, (section ), , (section ) and (section ) are fully described and introduced as new to science. These four new species are identified based on both morphological characteristics and multigene phylogenetic analyses, including the genealogical concordance phylogenetic species recognition method where necessary. is considered to be a synonym of