Pleurotus

Pleurotus is a genus of gilled mushrooms which includes one of the most widely eaten mushrooms, P. ostreatus. Species of Pleurotus may be called oyster, abalone, or tree mushrooms, and are some of the most commonly cultivated edible mushrooms in the world.[1] Pleurotus fungi have been used in mycoremediation of pollutants such as petroleum and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.[2][3] Oyster mushrooms contain lovastatin, a form of cholesterol lowering statin.

Pleurotus
Pleurotus ostreatus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Phylum:	Basidiomycota
Class:	Agaricomycetes
Order:	Agaricales
Family:	Pleurotaceae
Genus:	Pleurotus (Fr.) P. Kumm. 1871
Type species
Pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq.) P. Kumm. 1871

Pleurotus
float Mycological characteristics
	ecology is saprotrophic
	edibility: choice

Description

The caps may be laterally attached (with no stipe). If there is a stipe, it is normally eccentric and the gills are decurrent along it. The term pleurotoid is used for any mushroom with this general shape.[4]

The spores are smooth and elongated (described as "cylindrical"). Where hyphae meet, they are joined by clamp connections. Pleurotus is not considered to be a bracket fungus, and most of the species are monomitic (with a soft consistency). However, remarkably, Pleurotus dryinus can sometimes be dimitic, meaning that it has additional skeletal hyphae, which give it a tougher consistency like bracket fungi.[5]

Ecology

Pleurotus fungi are found in both tropical and temperate climates throughout the world.[1] Most species of Pleurotus are white-rot fungi on hardwood trees, although some also decay conifer wood.[3] Pleurotus eryngii is unusual in being a weak parasite of herbaceous plants, and P. tuber-regium produces underground sclerotia.[6] In addition to being saprotrophic, all species of Pleurotus are also nematophagous, catching nematodes by paralyzing them with a toxin.[7][8]

Cuisine

Oyster mushrooms are popular for cooking, torn up instead of sliced, especially in stir fry or sauté, because they are consistently thin, and so will cook more evenly than uncut mushrooms of other types.[9] They are often used in vegetarian cuisine.[10]

Taxonomy

P. pulmonarius, Sweden

The classification of species within the genus Pleurotus is difficult due to high phenotypic variability across wide geographic ranges, geographic overlap of species, and on going evolution and speciation. Early taxonomic efforts placed the oyster mushrooms within a very broad Agaricus as Agaricus ostreatus (Jacq. 1774). Paul Kummer defined the genus Pleurotus in 1871; since then, the genus has been narrowed with species moving to other genera such as Favolaschia, Hohenbuehelia, Lentinus, Marasmiellus, Omphalotus, Panellus, Pleurocybella, and Resupinatus. See Singer (1986)[11] for an example of Pleurotus taxonomy based on morphological characteristics.

Phylogeny

More recently, molecular phylogenetics has been utilized to determine genetic and evolutionary relationships between groups within the genus, delineating discrete clades.[12][13][14] Pleurotus, along with the closely related genus Hohenbuehelia, has been shown to be monophyletic.[8] Tests of cross-breeding viability between groups have been used to further define which groups are deserving of species rank, as opposed to subspecies, variety, or synonymy. If two groups of morphologically distinct Pleurotus fungi are able to cross-breed and produce fertile offspring, they meet one definition of species. These reproductively discrete groups, referred to as intersterility groups, have begun to be defined in Pleurotus.[13][15] Many binomial names used in literature are now being grouped together as species complexes using this technique, and may change.

Phylogenetic species

The following species list is organized according to 1. phylogenetic clade,[12][14] 2. intersterility group (group number in Roman numerals) or sub-clade,[13][15] and then 3. any older binomial names that have been found to be closely related, reproductively compatible, or synonymous, although they may no longer be taxonomically valid. This list is likely to be incomplete.

P. populinus, Pennsylvania, USA

Pleurotus mushrooms production at the Agricultural Science and Technology School, Science City of Muñoz, Philippines

• P. ostreatus clade[14]
  • I. P. ostreatus (oyster or pearl oyster mushroom) – North America and northern Eurasia[13]
    • P. florida[12]
  • II. P. pulmonarius (phoenix or Indian oyster mushroom) – North America, Eurasia, and Australasia[14][16]
    • P. columbinus[12]
    • P. sapidus
  • III. P. populinus – North America[13]
  • VI. P. eryngii (king oyster mushroom) – Europe and the Middle East[13]
    • P. ferulae
    • P. fossulatus – Afghanistan[13]
    • P. nebrodensis[17]
  • XII. P. abieticola – Asia[14]
  • XIII. P. albidus – Caribbean, Central America, South America[15]
• P. djamor-cornucopiae clade[14]
  

  P. eryngii, Spain
  • IV. P. cornucopiae (branched oyster mushroom) – Europe
    • P. citrinopileatus (golden oyster mushroom) – eastern Asia
    • P. euosmus (tarragon oyster mushroom)
  • V. P. djamor (pink oyster mushroom) – pantropical
    • P. flabellatus
    • P. salmoneo-stramineus
    • P. salmonicolor
  • XI. P. opuntiae – North America,[14] New Zealand[16]
  • XVI. P. calyptratus
• P. cystidiosus clade[12][18]
  

  P. citrinopileatus
  • VII. P. cystidiosus (abalone mushroom) – global
    • P. abalonus – Taiwan
    • P. fuscosquamulosus – Africa, Europe
    • P. smithii – Mexico
  • IX. P. dryinus – North America, Europe, and New Zealand
• VIII. Lentinus levis – subtropical to tropical,[15] moved to genus Lentinus.[19]
• X. P. tuber-regium (king tuber mushroom) – Africa, Asia, Australasia[6][14]
• XIV. P. australis (brown oyster mushroom) – Australia and New Zealand[15][16]
• XV. P. purpureo-olivaceus – Australia and New Zealand[15][16]
  • P. rattenburyi

Incertae sedis species

• P. gardneri
• P. parsonsii[16]
• P. velatus[16]

Former species

• P. levis was reclassified to the genus Lentinus.
• P. sajor-caju was reclassified to the genus Lentinus.
• P. nidiformis was reclassified to the genus Omphalotus in 1994.[20]

See also

• Antromycopsis – an anamorphic form of Pleurotus
• List of Pleurotus species

References

1. Chang, Shu-ting; Miles, Philip G. (2004). "Pleurotus – A Mushroom of Broad Adaptability". Mushrooms: cultivation, nutritional value, medicinal effect, and environmental impact (2nd ed.). CRC Press. pp. 315–325. ISBN 978-0-8493-1043-0.
2. Paul Stamets (2005). Mycelium Running. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press. ISBN 978-1-58008-579-3. OCLC 262557556.
3. Cohen, R.; Persky, L.; Hadar, Y. (2002). "Biotechnological applications and potential of wood-degrading mushrooms of the genus Pleurotus" (PDF). Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 58 (5): 582–94. doi:10.1007/s00253-002-0930-y. PMID 11956739. S2CID 45444911.
4. Marcel Bon. The Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain and North-Western Europe. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-39935-X.
5. Knudsen, Henning; Jan Vesterhout (2008). Funga Nordica. Copenhagen: Nordsvamp. p. 321.
6. Hibbett, D. S.; Thorn, R. G. (Sep–Oct 1994). "Nematode-Trapping in Pleurotus tuberregium". Mycologia. 86 (5): 696–699. doi:10.2307/3760542. JSTOR 3760542.
7. Barron, GL; Thorn, RG (1987). "Destruction of nematodes by species of Pleurotus". Canadian Journal of Botany. 65 (4): 774–778. doi:10.1139/b87-103.
8. Thorn, R. Greg; Moncalvo, Jean-Marc; Reddy, C. A.; Vilgalys, Rytas (Mar–Apr 2000). "Phylogenetic Analyses and the Distribution of Nematophagy Support a Monophyletic Pleurotaceae within the Polyphyletic Pleurotoid-Lentinoid Fungi". Mycologia. 92 (2): 241–252. doi:10.2307/3761557. JSTOR 3761557.
9. Freedman, Louise (1987). "Oyster Mushroom". Wild About Mushrooms: The Cookbook of the Mycological Society of San Francisco. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 9780943186306. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
10. "Deep Fried Oyster Mushroom". Kitchen Chaos. October 31, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
11. Singer R. (1986). The Agaricales in Modern Taxonomy (4th ed.). Koenigstein Königstein im Taunus, Germany: Koeltz Scientific Books. ISBN 3-87429-254-1.
12. Gonzalez, Patrice; Labarère, Jacques (2000). "Phylogenetic relationships of Pleurotus species according to the sequence and secondary structure of the mitochondrial small-subunit rRNA V4, V6 and V9 domains". Microbiology. 146 (1): 209–221. doi:10.1099/00221287-146-1-209. PMID 10658667.
13. Vilgalys, Rytas; Sun, Bao Lin (May 1994). "Ancient and recent patterns of geographic speciation in the oyster mushroom Pleurotus revealed by phylogenetic analysis of ribosomal DNA sequences". PNAS. 91 (10): 4599–4603. Bibcode:1994PNAS...91.4599V. doi:10.1073/pnas.91.10.4599. PMC 43833. PMID 8183955.
14. Vilgalys, R.; Moncalvo, J.M.; Liou, S.R.; Volovsek, M. (1996). "Recent advances in molecular systematics of the genus Pleurotus" (PDF). In Royse, D.J. (ed.). Mushroom biology and mushroom products: proceedings of the 2nd International Conference, June 9–12, 1996. University Park, PA (USA): Pennsylvania State University: World Society for Mushroom Biology and Mushroom Products. pp. 91–101. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-02. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
15. Peterson, Ronald H.; Hughes, Karen W. & Psurtseva, Nadezhda. "Biological Species in Pleurotus". The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Archived from the original on 2011-03-02. Retrieved 2011-03-11.
16. Segedin, BP; Buchanan, PK; Wilkie, JP (1995). "Studies in the agaricales of New Zealand: New species, new records and renamed species of Pleurotus (Pleurotaceae)". Australian Systematic Botany. 8 (3): 453–482. doi:10.1071/SB9950453.
17. Alma E. Rodriguez Estrada, Maria del Mar Jimenez-Gasco and Daniel J. Royse (May–June 2010). "Pleurotus eryngii species complex: Sequence analysis and phylogeny based on partial EF1α and RPB2 genes". Fungal Biology. 114 (5–6): 421–428. doi:10.1016/j.funbio.2010.03.003. PMID 20943152.
18. Zervakis, Georgios I.; Moncalvo, Jean-Marc; Vilgalys, Rytas (2004). "Molecular phylogeny, biogeography and speciation of the mushroom species Pleurotus cystidiosus and allied taxa". Microbiology. 150 (3): 715–726. doi:10.1099/mic.0.26673-0. PMID 14993321.
19. For P. levis, see "Species Fungorum - Pleurotus levis page". Species Fungorum. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
20. Miller, O.K. (1994). "Observations on the genus Omphalotus in Australia". Mycologia Helvetica. 2: 91–100.

External links

• Pleurotus Genus on the Mushroom, the Journal of Wild Mushrooming site
• Oysters: Pleurotoid Mushrooms at MushroomExpert.com
• Dichotomous key for Pleurotus species from University of Tennessee-Knoxville Mycology Lab
• "Pleurotus (Fr.) P.Kumm". Atlas of Living Australia.
• Freedman, Louise (2000). "Oyster Mushroom". Wild About Mushrooms: The Cookbook of the San Francisco Mycological Society. Mycological Society of San Francisco.