The Halosphaeriaceae revisited

Abstract

The Halosphaeriaceae is a monophyletic group that shares a common ancestor with Microascaceae and, along with the families Graphiaceae, Ceratocystidiaceae, Chadefaudiellaceae and Gondwanamycetacea, is referred to the order Microascales. It constitutes the largest family in Microascales with 63 genera (166 species) and differs from other families in that most species are aquatic (predominantly marine) and characterised by perithecial ascomata, centrum tissue comprising catenophyses, clavate to fusiform asci that generally deliquesce early, hyaline, unicellular to many times septate ascospores usually with appendages. Although approximately 75% of halosphaeriaceous species have been sequenced, their phylogenetic grouping based on morphological features is not supported. This indicates that certain characters have evolved and been lost several times. New sequences have been generated in this study; a phylogenetic analysis based on the 18S and 28S rDNA was run to determine phylogenetic relationships between genera, and pairwise distance of the partial 28S rDNA was calculated.

A 17-year time-series of fungal environmental DNA from a coastal marine ecosystem reveals long-term seasonal-scale and inter-annual diversity patterns

“…Of the 351 genera identified in this study from the eDNA-based survey of the coastal marine site, very few obligate marine taxa were identified (electronic supplementary material, figure S2), such as representatives of the iconic order Lulworthiales [49] and family Halosphaeriaceae [50]. The reasons for this are unclear; both Lulworthiales and Halosphaeriaceae belong in the Sordariomycetes which are otherwise frequent in the dataset.…”

Molecular data reveals a new holomorphic marine fungus, Halobyssothecium estuariae, and the asexual morph of Keissleriella phragmiticola

“…DNA sequence data has revealed several cryptic taxa and allowed us to understand evolutionary relations in the fungi as phenotypic characters alone may not be adequate for species identification (De Gruyter et al 2009 , 2013 ). Jones et al ( 2015 , 2017 )) introduced a number of new marine genera for Aniptodera species: Praelongicaulis kandeliae (= A. kandeliae ), Paraaniptodera longispora (= A. longispora ) and Aniptosporopsis lignatilis (= A. lignatilis ) based on phylogenetic studies. The marine genus Lulworthia also poses a major taxonomical challenge in that all species have filiform hyaline ascospores with a polar chamber from which a drop of mucilage is released (Cavaliere and Johnson 1966 ; Jones 1994 ; Kohlmeyer et al 2000 ).…”

Taxonomy, phylogeny and evolution of freshwater Hypocreomycetidae (Sordariomycetes)

“…Several studies have discussed the evolution of morphological characters and the origin of Halosphaeriaceae (Sakayaroj et al 2011;Jones et al 2017Jones et al , 2019. However, there is no specific studies on the evolution of Hypocreomycetidae especially for freshwater fungi.…”

“…50: 1951Bot. 50: (1972 Halosphaeriaceae (Microascales, Hypocrealmycetidae) comprises 64 genera (Pang 2002;Jones et al 2009Jones et al , 2015Jones et al , 2017Jones et al , 2019Maharachchikumbura et al 2015;Wijayawardene et al 2017Hyde et al 2020a;Wijayawardene et al 2022).…”