Abstract
Botryosphaeriales is an important order of diverse fungal pathogens, saprobes, and endophytes distributed worldwide. Recent studies of Botryosphaeriales in China have discovered a broad range of species, some of which have not been formerly described. In this study, 60 saprobic isolates were obtained from decaying woody hosts in southwestern China. The isolates were compared with other species using morphological characteristics, and available DNA sequence data was used to infer phylogenetic analyses based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), large subunit rRNA gene (LSU), and translation elongation factor 1-α (tef) loci. Three novel species were illustrated and described as Botryobambusa guizhouensis, Sardiniella elliptica, and Sphaeropsis guizhouensis, which belong to rarely identified genera within Botryosphaeriaceae. Botryobambusa guizhouensis is the second species identified from the respective monotypic genus. The previously known species were identified as Aplosporella hesperidica, Barriopsis tectonae, Botryosphaeria dothidea, Diplodia mutila, Di. neojuniperi, Di. pseudoseriata, Di. sapinea, Di. seriata, Dothiorella sarmentorum, Do. yunnana, Lasiodiplodia pseudotheobromae, Neofusicoccum parvum, Sardiniella celtidis, Sa. guizhouensis, and Sphaeropsis citrigena. The results of this study indicate that numerous species of Botryosphaeriales are yet to be revealed in southwestern China.
Highlights
The Botryosphaeriales are among the most widespread, common, and important fungal pathogens of woody plants
Sixty isolates obtained from various decaying woody hosts in various locations in Guizhou province were primarily recognized by colony characteristics, such as abundant greenish black aerial mycelia on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium
The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene region sequences compared with those in GenBank using the BLAST tool exhibited 95–99% similarity to known. Botryosphaeriales species, and these closely related known species were included in the phylogenetic analysis
Summary
The Botryosphaeriales are among the most widespread, common, and important fungal pathogens of woody plants. Many are known to exist as endophytes in healthy plant tissues and as saprobes in dead tree materials This fungal order has gone through significant revisions, and several new families, genera, and species have been introduced or synonymized over the last decade, mainly on the basis of combined morphological and multiple gene sequence data [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Phillips et al [3] revised the order and accepted Aplosporellaceae, Botryosphaeriaceae, Melanopsaceae, Phyllostictaceae, Planistromellaceae, and Saccharataceae, while Endomelanconiopsidaceae, Pseudofusicoccaceae, and Septorioideaceae were considered as synonyms of Botryosphaeriaceae, Phyllostictaceae, and Saccharataceae, respectively.
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