Species Diversity of Hypogeous Ascomycetes in Israel

Abstract

We conducted a species diversity study of the hypogeous Ascomycetes of Israel. The hypogeous Ascomycetes in Israel include members of the families Pyronemataceae, Pezizaceae, and Tuberaceae, which are represented by seven species: Hydnocystis piligera, Terfezia arenaria, T. claveryi, T. oligosperma, Tirmania africana, Tuber asa, and T. nitidum; only T. asa is new to Israeli mycobiota. Synonymy, locations, collection data, general distribution, distribution in Israel, descriptions, a key to identification, illustrations, and taxonomic remarks are provided.

Identification of endophytic fungi from leaves of Pandanaceae based on their morphotypes and DNA sequence data from southern Thailand

“…The family Massarinaceae was introduced by Munk (1956) under Pleosporales together with Cucurbitariaceae and Didymosphaeriaceae. Later, Barr (1987) segregated Massarinaceae under Lophiostomataceae based on morphology, while based on multigene phylogenetic analysis Schoch et al (2009) also showed Massarinaceae is a distinct family in order Pleosporales. Recently, Zhang et al (2009Zhang et al ( , 2012 recognised Massarinaceae as a distinct lineage based on both morphology and molecular phylogeny.…”

Asian Mediterranean Desert Truffles

“…Some authors still refer to the popular Negev brown truffle as T. arenaria (e.g., Berseghyan and Wasser 2010), but a new examination of specimens confirmed that this abundant brown truffle is indeed Terfezia boudieri (Holdengraeber et al 2001). Terfezia claveryi is also found in Israel, but very rarely (Berseghyan and Wasser 2010). A single specimen of Terfezia olbiensis was collected on 1979 near Beit Shemesh (close to Jerusalem), Israel (Alsheikh 1994).…”

“…11.5d, Binyamini 1980;Berseghyan and Wasser 2010). T. africana is synonymous with Tirmania nivea (Desf.:Fr.)…”

“…In Israel desert truffles are confined to undisturbed areas in the southern part of the country, namely, the Negev desert (Binyamini 1980;Kagan-Zur and RothBejerano 2008b;Berseghyan and Wasser 2010). Indeed, while a variety of truffle genera belonging to different families occur from the south of the country all the way to the northern border (Binyamini 1980;Berseghyan and Wasser 2010), apart from a single documented collection of Terfezia olbiensis near Beit Shemesh (Alsheikh 1994), none of the species collected north of the Negev region are desert truffles.…”

“…Indeed, while a variety of truffle genera belonging to different families occur from the south of the country all the way to the northern border (Binyamini 1980;Berseghyan and Wasser 2010), apart from a single documented collection of Terfezia olbiensis near Beit Shemesh (Alsheikh 1994), none of the species collected north of the Negev region are desert truffles.…”