Six Additions to the Genus Periconia (Dothideomycetes: Periconiaceae) from Graminaceous Plants in China

Abstract

Periconia is a polyphyletic and asexual morphic genus within the family Periconiaceae (Pleosporales). The genus is characterized by a pale to dark brown stipe with an apical conidial head and ellipsoidal to oblong conidia. Species of Periconia are widely distributed throughout the world in various hosts, while most species are isolated from graminaceous plants. During our investigations of microfungal in Sichuan Province, China, 26 Periconia isolates were collected from a wide variety of graminaceous plants. These isolates corresponded to 11 species based on the examination of morphology and multi-locus phylogenetic analysis (SSU, ITS, LSU, TEF1, RPB2). This includes six new species (P. chengduensis, P. cynodontis, P. festucae, P. imperatae, P. penniseti, and P. spodiopogonis) and five new records (P. byssoides, P. chimonanthi, P. cookie, P. pseudobyssoides, and P. verrucosa). A comprehensive description and illustrations of the new species are provided and discussed with comparable taxa. These discoveries expand our knowledge of the species diversity of Periconia taxa in graminaceous plants in China.

Three New Periconia Species Isolated from Wurfbainia villosa in Guangdong, China: A Discussion on the Doubtful Taxa Clustering in this Genus

“…In this study, our tree topology is similar to the previous studies of Yang et al [16] and Su et al [17]. Nonetheless, the inclusion of newly discovered taxa, such as the six novel species (P. chengduensis, P. cynodontis, P. festucae, P. imperatae, P. penniseti, and P. spodiopogonis) reported by Su et al [17], has led to minor changes in the positions of certain species.…”

“…In this study, our tree topology is similar to the previous studies of Yang et al [16] and Su et al [17]. Nonetheless, the inclusion of newly discovered taxa, such as the six novel species (P. chengduensis, P. cynodontis, P. festucae, P. imperatae, P. penniseti, and P. spodiopogonis) reported by Su et al [17], has led to minor changes in the positions of certain species. The addition of our novel species resulted in Sporidesmium tengii (HKUCC 10837) clustering with Periconia cynodontis CGMCC 3.23927 instead of P. didymosporium MFLU 15-0058 as in Yang et al [16].…”

“…The sequences used for phylogenetic analyses were downloaded from GenBank and corresponded to published literature based on the Blastn search of the ITS gene against the GenBank database [16,17]. A total of 78 sequences were used in the phylogenetic analyses (Table 1), with Morosphaeria ramunculicola (KH 220) and M. velatispora (KH 221) as the outgroup taxa.…”

Exploring ascomycete diversity in Yunnan II: Introducing three novel species in the suborder Massarineae (Dothideomycetes, Pleosporales) from fern and grasses

“…However, some species have been reported as endophytes, plant pathogens (e.g. P. circinata , P. digitata and P. macrospinosa ) and human pathogens, as well as producing economically-important bioactive compounds ( Sarkar et al 2019 ; Gunasekaran et al 2021 ; Hongsanan et al 2020 ; Samarakoon et al 2021 ; Azhari and Supratman 2021 ; Yang et al 2022b ; Su et al 2023 ). Even though over 200 species of Periconia were listed in Index Fungorum ( http://www.indexfungorum.org ; accessed on 25 May 2023), less than half of a quarter have molecular data to clarify phylogenetic placement.…”

“…This suggests that there is a huge research gap in the taxonomic classification of the genus Periconia . In the present study, we follow the latest taxonomic treatment of Yang et al (2022b) and Su et al (2023) and the new species Periconia kunmingensis occurring on fern, is introduced.…”