Four new species of Phyllosticta from China based on morphological and phylogenetic characterization

Abstract

Phyllosticta ( Phyllostictaceae, Botryosphaeriales ) species are widely distributed globally and constitute a diverse group of pathogenic and endophytic fungi associated with a broad range of plant hosts. In this study, four new species of Phyllosticta , i.e. P. endophytica, P. jiangxiensis, P. machili , and P. xinyuensis , were described using morphological characteristics and multi-locus phylogeny based on the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) with intervening 5.8S rRNA gene, large subunit of rRNA gene (nrLSU), translation elongation factor 1-alpha gene ( tef1 ), actin gene ( act ), and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene ( gapdh ). Phyllosticta machili is the first species of this genus reported to infect plants of the Machilus genus.