Diversity, morphology and molecular phylogeny of Dothideomycetes on decaying wild seed pods and fruits

Abstract

Dothideomycetes is one of the largest and most diverse class of ascomycetes. Its members are reported from many plant parts, but less has been reported from wild seed pods and fruits. Dothideomycetes can be seed-borne or colonize fruits and seed pods when they fall to the ground. We studied the Dothideomycetes found on wild fruits and seed pods, mainly in Thailand (tropical), and to a lesser extent, in China (temperate) and UK (temperate). We describe eight new genera, 50 new species, provide 38 new host records and propose seven new combinations. The new genera are

News from the Sea: A New Genus and Seven New Species in the Pleosporalean Families Roussoellaceae and Thyridariaceae

“…Morphological structures were observed, and images captured using an optical microscope (Leica DM4500B, Leica microsystems GmbH, Wetzlar) equipped with a camera (Leica DFC320, Leica microsystems GmbH, Wetzlar). Macro-and microscopic features were compared with the available description of Roussoellaceae and Thyridariaceae [14,15,17,18,20].…”

“…A dataset consisting of nrSSU, nrITS, nrLSU, TEF1α and RPB2 was assembled on the basis of BLASTn results and of recent phylogenetic studies focused on Roussoellaceae and Thyridariaceae [18,20]. Reference sequences were retrieved from GenBank (Table 1).…”

“…Preliminary analyses carried out individually with nrITS, nrSSU, nrLSU, TEF1α and RPB2 denoted no incongruence in the topology of the single-locus trees. The combined five-markers dataset-built on the basis of BLASTn results and of recent phylogenetic studies [18,20]-consisted of 81 taxa (including MUT isolates) that represented 16 genera and 56 species (Table 1). A total of 63 sequences (2 nrITS, 8 nrSSU, 13 nrLSU, 20 TEF1α and 20 RPB2) were newly generated while 261 were retrieved from GenBank.…”

The rise of mycology in Asia

“…Zhang et al [54] reported 246 species in 116 genera from two unnamed Karst cave in Guizhou, China, including 20 new species. This first study is followed by a second [57,58]. In fact, the fungi on most terrestrial hosts in Asia have barely been studied and we predict that tens of thousands of species await discovery.…”

Phylogenetic placement of Leptosphaeria polylepidis, a pathogen of Andean endemic Polylepis tarapacana, and its newly discovered mycoparasite Sajamaea mycophila gen. et sp. nov.

“…typhicola forming only asexual state on the natural substrate (Hyde et al 2016) and Ps. bauhiniae producing both asexual and sexual states on the natural substrate (Jayasiri et al 2019). While the fungus found on the pseudothecia of Pa. polylepidis lacks a sexual state and forms uniloculate to multi-loculate pycnidia and pale brown, broadly ellipsoidal conidia, the species of Pseudocoleophoma usually produce a sexual state and pycnidia of the asexual state are uniloculate and the cylindrical conidia are hyaline.…”