Ascospore morphology of bryophilous Pezizales is closely associated with the place of infection and host ecology

Lamprospora aberrans sp. nov. (Pezizales) – the first species of Lamprospora with hairy apothecia

“…by Yao & Spooner (1996b); Caillet & Moyne (1987) established a section Neottiellae in Octospora for the hairy species, which was followed by Moravec (1997). In more modern works, Neottiella is usually accepted as a separate genus for species with stiff hairs and infecting Polytrichaceae ( Eckstein et al 2014, Vega 2017, Eckstein et al 2020, Janošík 2020). Molecular data have shown that the type species of Neottiella – N .…”

“…vivida (Nyl.) Dennis ( Janošík 2020), as well as with Octospora kilimanjarensis J.Moravec from Africa ( Moravec 1997) and N . gigaspora M.Zeng, Q.Zhao & K.D.Hyde, recently described from China ( Yuan et al 2020).…”

“… Döbbeler 2011, Döbbeler et al 2018, Egertová et al 2018a) occur in several species of bryophilous Pezizales. They are present in all species classified in recent works to the genera Octosporella ( Döbbeler & Menjívar 1992, Yao et al 2006, Döbbeler 2011, Döbbeler et al 2018, Döbbeler & Davison 2021, Janošík et al 2022), Neottiella ( Benkert 1995, Yuan et al 2020), both species of Octosporopsis ( Lindemann et al 2014, Egertová et al 2018a), and can also be found in some members of the large genus Octospora ( Dennis & Itzerott 1973, Benkert 2006, Németh 2017, Sochorová et al 2019, Vega & Moyne 2019). The only genera of bryophilous Pezizales in which no hairy species were known are Filicupula ( Yao & Spooner 1996a, Döbbeler & DaVison 2021) and Lamprospora (e.g.…”

Octospora entosthodontophila, a new smooth-spored bryophilous ascomycete on Entosthodon spp.

“…All of them have a highly specialised bryophilous lifestyle, being closely associated with various bryophyte hosts. They show a high morphological diversity in the shape and ornamentation of ascospores as well as in number, size, and pattern of lipid bodies inside the ascospores ( JanoŠÍk et al 2023). Most of them possess ascospores ornamented with warts, tubercles, ridges or reticulum and only around 30 % of the described species have smooth ascospores ( Eckstein 2023).…”

“…Ascospore ornamentation appears to be a relatively fast evolving trait. Species with smooth ascospores are scattered in multiple lineages throughout the phylogeny of bryophilous Pezizales, and the ancestral state reconstruction of ornamentation height showed that there were likely numerous transitions from ascospores with smooth surface to strongly ornamented ascospores, as well as shifts in the opposite direction ( Janošík et al 2023).…”