Dictyostelid cellular slime molds (dictyostelids) are key components of soil microbes. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is characterized by unique and important forest types because of the considerable range in elevation which exists. During the period of 2012, 2013 and 2016, 12 species of dictyostelids were yielded from samples collected in this region, including two new species and three new records for China. Six other species were new records for this region. Ontogeny, morphology, ultrastructure and systematic molecular analyses (SSU & ITS) of D. minimum and D. multiforme confirm that they are Goup 4 new species. The ornamentation of the surface of dictyostelids’ spores is the first time to be observed until now. In the SSU phylogenetic tree generated in the present study, Synstelium, not assigned to order and family before, was assigned to the clade Acytosteliaceae in the Acytosteliales firstly. To our knowledge, the study reported herein is the first investigation of dictyostelid biodiversity carried out at elevations above 2000 m. Sorocarp size, sorus size, spore length, ratio of sorus and sorophore, and ratio of sorus and spore size were positively correlated with increasing elevation and no linear correlated with forest type, according to the results of linear regression analysis.

Outbreaks of wet bubble disease (WBD) caused by Mycogone perniciosa are increasing across the world and seriously affecting the yield of Agaricus bisporus. However, highly WBD-resistant strains are rare. Here, we tested 28 A. bisporus strains for WBD resistance by inoculating M. perniciosa spore suspension on casing soil, and assessed genetic diversity of these strains using 17 new simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers developed in this study. We found that 10 wild strains originating from the Tibetan Plateau in China were highly WBD-resistant strains, and 13 cultivated strains from six countries were highly susceptible strains. A total of 88 alleles were detected in these 28 strains, and the observed number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 8. Cluster and genetic structure analysis results revealed the wild resources from China have a relatively high level of genetic diversity and occur at low level of gene flow and introgression with cultivated strains. Moreover, the wild strains from China potentially have the consensus ancestral genotypes different from the cultivated strains and evolved independently. Therefore, the highly WBD-resistant wild strains from China and newly developed SSR markers could be used as novel sources for WBD-resistant breeding and quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping of WBD-resistant gene of A. bisporus.

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