Ben Salem, I., Correia, K. C, Boughalleb, N., Michereff, S. J., León, M., Abad-Campos, P., García-Iiménez, I., and Armengol, J. 2013. Monosporascus eutypoides, a cause of root rot and vine decline in Tunisia, and evidence that M. cannonbailus and M. eutypoides are distinct species. Plant Dis. 97:737-743.Three Monosporascus eutypoides-\ike isolates recovered from cucurbit plants with symptoms of Monosporascus root rot and vine decline in Tunisia were compared to 28 isolates of M. cannonbaiius from 12 countries for phenotypic, genomic, and pathogenicity charactedstics. Morphologically, M. cannonbaiius and M. eutypoides-like cultures were similar, each producing fertile pedthecia in culture containing globose, smooth, dark brown to black ascospores. Nevertheless, all M. cannonbaiius isolates had one ascospore per ascus, while M. eutypoides-like isolates had mainly two to three ascospores per ascus (rarely one). The employment of the internal transcdbed spacer (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA, the elongation factor 1-a {EF-la), and the ß-tubulin (P-tub) gene sequence diversity analyses and the resulting phytogenies identified a level of polymorphism that enabled separation of M. cannonbaiius and M. eurypoide.i-yike isolates. All isolates of M. cannonbaiius had identical EF-\a and fi-tub sequences irrespective of very diverse geographic origins, which were different from the EF-\a and P-tub sequences of the M. eutypoides-like isolates (96 and 97% similadty, respectively). Similar results were obtained for the ITS region of rDNA. In addition, of three M. eutypoides-like isolates tested for pathogenicity, all three were pathogenic on watermelon, two were pathogenic on muskmelon, but only one was pathogenic on cucumber. The results demonstrate that the M. eutypoides-like isolates belong to the species M. eutypoides, and that M. cannonbaiius and M. eutypoides