Computer Taxonomy in the Fungi Imperfecti

Abstract

In Part I of this paper, the principles of numerical taxonomy are discussed and the practical processes outlined, with particular reference to their applicability to the Fungi Imperfecti.In Part II, one of the authors (J.R.P.) discusses several scoring methods, including one introduced by the authors in which a 'primary' character is weighted according to the number of 'secondary' characters used to describe it. The merits of the various methods are considered.In Part III, one of the authors (W.B.K.) discusses the results obtained when 30 strains of Hyphomycetes belonging to the Leptographium complex were compared using a computer, the taxonomic data being scored in six ways. The classification agreeing most closely with the established one was obtained when 'primary' characters were weighted and 'negative matches' were included. Of the methods applied, this is considered in Part II to be the most logically satisfying.

Pyrenomycetes — Fungi with Perithecia

“…Hughes (1953) made the earliest attempt at a comprehensive classification of the anamorph fungi using characters of conidiophore and conidial development. This system was built upon by subsequent workers (see the publications of the Kananaskas Conferences; Kendrick 1971Kendrick , 1979. Cole and Samson (1979) beautifully illustrated and clearly explained conidial development in many conidial fungi.…”

The Taxonomy of Anamorphic Fungi

“…Hughes (1953), who proposed that conidium ontogeny be used as a primary character for sorting anamorphic fungi. Many refinements to the complexly defined eight "sections" of the Hughes system were proposed, for example by Tubaki (1958) and Barron (1968), culminating in the formalization of definitions and concepts at the first Kananaskis Conference (Kendrick 1971). The fundamental structures, conidioma (a specialized multihyphal, conidia-bearing structure, under which term acervulus, pycnidium, sporodochium, and synnema are included, see Figs.…”

“…Publication of these concepts led to an explosion of research on the production of conidia (mostly in hyphomycetes) using time-Iapse photography and electron microscopy (Cole and Samson 1979;Mangenot and Reisinger 1976). Minter et al (1982Minter et al ( , 1983a reemphasized the distinction between development of conidia (ontogeny), proliferation of the conidiogenous ceIls, and maturation of conidia, originaIly introduced by Kendrick (in Kendrick 1971). They paid particular attention to the behavior of cell walls during the three processes and proposed a stepwise system for describing conidiogenesis.…”

Ballistosporomyces, a new ballistospore-forming anamorphic yeast genus.

“…Some researchers have been spending time in argument about the definition of "holoblastic" and "enteroblastic" (5,7,16,18,24), but we have no clear idea on that. Kendrick (17) and others treated "annellidic" and "tretic" as "holoblastic" and "enteroblastic," respectively.…”