Diversity of fungi associated with macroalgae from an estuarine environment and description of Cladosporium rubrum sp. nov. and Hypoxylon aveirense sp. nov.

Abstract

Fungal communities associated with macroalgae remain largely unexplored. To characterize algicolous fungal communities using culture dependent methods, macroalgae were collected from different sampling sites in the Ria de Aveiro estuary, Portugal. From a collection of 486 isolates that were obtained, 213 representative isolates were selected through microsatellite-primed PCR (MSP-PCR) fingerprinting analysis. The collection yielded 33 different genera, which were identified using the ITS region of the rDNA. The results revealed that the most abundant taxa in all collections were Acremonium-like species: Alternaria, Cladosporium, Leptobacillium and Penicillium. The fungal community composition varied with macroalgae species. Through multilocus phylogenetic analyses based on ITS, tub2, tef1-α and actA sequences, in addition to detailed morphological data, we propose Cladosporium rubrum sp. nov. (type strain=CMG 28=MUM 19.39) and Hypoxylon aveirense sp. nov. (type strain=CMG 29=MUM 19.40) as novel species.

Unveiling Biological Activities of Marine Fungi: The Effect of Sea Salt

“…Twenty-five fungal strains isolated from different substrates from marine and estuarine environments in Portugal were used in this study (Table 1). These strains were previously identified by Crous et al [24,25], Gonçalves et al [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] and Vicente et al [33]. All strains were maintained at 25 • C in potato dextrose agar (PDA) containing 3% sea salt (Sigma-Aldrich, Darmstadt, Germany) prior to testing.…”

18S rDNA gene metabarcoding of microeukaryotes and epi‐endophytes in the holobiome of seven species of large brown algae

“…Fungi associated with brown algae can have a wide variety of effects on their hosts, from detrimental to beneficial (Suryanarayanan, 2012, and references therein). Two of the Ascomycota OTUs clustered with taxa known to be parasites of brown algae such as Hypocreales and Acremonium (Vicente et al, 2021;Wong Chin et al, 2022;Figure 4). Several of the basidiomycete OTUs clustered with reference sequences related to Cryptococcus and Cystofilobasidium that have previously been found associated with various marine invertebrates, algae, and seaweeds, and as parasites on other fungi (Figure 4; Duarte et al, 2013;Lo Giudice et al, 2019;Ogaki et al, 2019;Vaca et al, 2012).…”

Multi-Gene Phylogeny and Taxonomy of Hypoxylon (Hypoxylaceae, Ascomycota) from China

“…Teleomorph. Stromata pulvinate to effused-pulvinate, 0.1-2 cm long × 0.1-0.6 cm broad × 0.25-0.45 mm thick; with inconspicuous perithecial mounds; surface Livid Purple (81), Livid Vinaceous (83) and Violet (32), with colored coating worn off exposing Dark Purple (36) areas, sometimes with tiny cracks appearing; with pale-brown to orange-brown granules immediately beneath the surface and between perithecia; yielding Amber (47) and Ochreous (44) to Fulvous (43) pigments in 10% KOH; tissue below the perithecial layer inconspicuous and pale-brown to black. Perithecia ovoid to obovoid, black, 0.1-0.3 mm broad × 0.1-0.4 mm high.…”

“…Teleomorph. Stromata effused-pulvinate, 0.8-7.2 cm long × 0.6-3.3 cm broad × 0.7-1.5 mm thick; with inconspicuous to conspicuous perithecial mounds; surface Violet (32), Livid Purple (81) and Dark Violet (33); highly carbonaceous black granules immdediately beneath surface and between perithecia; yielding Pale Vinaceous (85) to Livid Vinaceous (83) and Vinaceous Purple (101) pigments in 10% KOH; tissue below the perithecial layer black, conspicuous, 0.3-0.8 mm thick. Perithecia spherical to obovoid, black, 0.2-0.5 mm broad × 0.3-0.6 mm high, occasionally with pale-brown perithecial contents.…”