Four New Species of Torula (Torulaceae, Pleosporales) from Sichuan, China

Abstract

Torula is an asexual and hyphomycetous genus in the family Torulaceae. Torula species are generally saprophytic. They have a worldwide distribution and abound in humid or freshwater habitats. In order to better understand this genus, we carried out several field collections from Sichuan, China. As a result, we obtained nine Torula isolates from dead woody substrates in terrestrial and freshwater habitats. Based on a biphasic approach of morphological examination and multi-locus phylogenetic analyses (ITS, SSU, LSU, TEF, RPB2), these collections were identified as belonging to seven Torula species. Four of them were new species (Torula chinensis, T. longiconidiophora, T. sichuanensis and T. submersa), and the other three belonged to existing species, though one was found for the first time in China (T. masonii). Morphological and updated phylogenetic delamination of the new discoveries is also discussed. This study provides further insights into our understanding of wood-based Torula species in China.

Morphology and multi-gene phylogeny reveal a novel Torula (Pleosporales, Torulaceae) species from the plateau lakes in Yunnan, China

“…3 ). Morphological characteristics of our new collection are consistent with Torula submersa ( Tian et al 2023 ). Based on morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analysis, we, therefore, identified our new collection as Torula submersa , which was collected from a lentic freshwater habitat for the first time.…”

“…Taxonomic research on Torulaceae in China is mainly concentrated in the south-western region and commonly found in freshwater habitats ( Hyde et al 2016 , Su et al 2016 , Su et al 2018 , Qiu et al 2022 , Tian et al 2023 ). There are four genera of Torulaceae viz.…”

“…Sequences were assembled with BioEdit ( Hall 1999 ) and those with high similarity indices were determined from a BLAST search to find the closest matches with taxa in Torula and from recently-published data ( Li et al 2020 , Li et al 2023 , Tian et al 2023 ). Aligned sequences of each loci (ITS, LSU, RPB2 and TEF) were combined and manually improved using BioEdit v.7.0.5.2 ( Hall 1999 ).…”

“… Torula submersa was introduced by Tian et al (2023) , collected on a submerged decaying branch from Sichuan Province. In this study, a fresh collection was made on submerged decaying wood in Luguhu Lake, Yunnan Province.…”

Two novel species and three new records of Torulaceae from Yunnan Province, China

“…Most Torula species have been reported from terrestrial habitats, with only nine species reported from freshwater habitats, and four species viz. T. fici , T. gaodangensis , T. mackenziei and T. masonii have been found in both terrestrial and freshwater habitats ( Su et al 2018 ; Hyde et al 2020 ; Boonmee et al 2021 ; Tian et al 2023 ).…”