Integrating Different Lines of Evidence to Establish a Novel Ascomycete Genus and Family (Anastomitrabeculia, Anastomitrabeculiaceae) in Pleosporales

Abstract

A novel genus, Anastomitrabeculia, is introduced herein for a distinct species, Anastomitrabeculia didymospora, collected as a saprobe on dead bamboo culms from a freshwater stream in Thailand. Anastomitrabeculia is distinct in its trabeculate pseudoparaphyses and ascospores with longitudinally striate wall ornamentation. A new family, Anastomitrabeculiaceae, is introduced to accommodate Anastomitrabeculia. Anastomitrabeculiaceae forms an independent lineage basal to Halojulellaceae in Pleosporales and it is closely related to Neohendersoniaceae based on phylogenetic analyses of a combined LSU, SSU and TEF1α dataset. In addition, divergence time estimates provide further support for the establishment of Anastomitrabeculiaceae. The family diverged around 84 million years ago (MYA) during the Cretaceous period, which supports the establishment of the new family. The crown and stem age of Anastomitrabeculiaceae was also compared to morphologically similar pleosporalean families.

Bambusicolous Fungi in Pleosporales: Introducing Four Novel Taxa and a New Habitat Record for Anastomitrabeculia didymospora

“…Bhunjun et al [ 71 ] introduced the novel family Anastomitrabeculiaceae to accommodate a monotypic genus Anastomitrabeculia based on morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses of a combined LSU, SSU and tef1-a dataset coupled with divergence time estimates using molecular clock methodologies. The novel taxa were isolated from bamboo culms submerged in freshwater in southern Thailand.…”

“…The genus is characterized by gregarious, uni-loculate, globose to subglobose, coriaceous ascomata, immersed under a clypeus to semi-immersed, with short, carbonaceous ostiolar neck, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindric-clavate asci, embedded in a hyaline, trabeculate pseudoparaphyses, and hyaline, fusiform, septate ascospores with longitudinally striate wall ornamentation, surrounded by a distinct, mucilaginous sheath [ 71 ]. According to Bhunjun et al [ 71 ], Anastomitrabeculiaceae has a close phylogenetic relationship with Halojulellaceae. However, Halojulellaceae can be distinguished from Anastomitrabeculiaceae in having cellular pseudoparaphyses and pigmented ascospores.…”

“…Many families in Pleosporales were initially introduced to accommodate bambusicolous fungi mainly such as Anastomitrabeculiaceae [ 71 ], Astrosphaeriellaceae [ 39 ], Bambusicolaceae [ 72 ], Occultibambusaceae [ 3 ], Parabambusicolaceae [ 27 ], Pseudoastrosphaeriellaceae [ 39 ], Roussoellaceae [ 32 ], Shiraiaceae [ 73 ] and Tetraploasphaeriaceae [ 12 ]. Furthermore, bambusicolous fungi are also distributed among many families in Pleosporales such as Aigialaceae, Dictyosporiaceae, Didymosphaeriaceae, Halotthiaceae, Lentitheciaceae, Ligninsphaeriaceae, Longipedicellataceae, Lophiotremataceae, Periconiaceae, Phaeosphaeriaceae, and Pleosporaceae [ 27 , 31 , 41 , 49 , 52 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ], suggesting that bambusicolous fungi are diverse in Pleosporales.…”

Synopsis of Leptosphaeriaceae and Introduction of Three New Taxa and One New Record from China

“…Molecular biology has helped to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships among members of Dothideomycetes , particularly among several phoma-like taxa [ 13 , 52 ]. Multi-loci analyses based on LSU, SSU, ITS, tub 2, rpb 2, and tef -1 sequences have been widely used to define species boundaries in Leptosphaeriaceae and other families of Dothideomycetes [ 13 , 52 , 53 ]. We carried out phylogenetic analyses with a concatenated dataset of five loci (ITS, LSU, SSU, tub 2, and rbp 2) for Leptosphaeriaceae members.…”

Morpho-Phylo Taxonomy of Novel Dothideomycetous Fungi Associated With Dead Woody Twigs in Yunnan Province, China

“…Liu et al (2017) proposed divergence time estimates as additional evidence for rearranging the internal classification of this class and this has been helpful to establish new families and species (Zhang S.N. et al, 2019, Bhunjun et al, 2021. The most recent order-level multi-gene phylogeny for Dothideomycetes is provided by Maharachchikumbura et al (2021), which also introduced another two orders viz.…”