The families Distoseptisporaceae fam. nov., Kirschsteiniotheliaceae, Sporormiaceae and Torulaceae, with new species from freshwater in Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

During a north–south latitudinal survey of aquatic fungi on submerged wood and herbaceous material in streams in the Asian region, we collected several hyphomycetous taxa. This paper is part of a series where we provide illustrated accounts of these taxa and place them in a natural classification in the fungi. DNA sequence based phylogenies in recent literature have shown that Dendryphion, Sporidesmium and Torula-like species are polyphyletic in the phylum Ascomycota and their taxonomyhas been problematic due to a lack of understanding of the importance of morphological characters used to delimit taxa, as well as the lack of ex-type or reference strains. Based on multi-locus phylogenies together with morphology, we propose the novel family Distoseptisporaceae (Sordariomycetes) and three novel genera Neotorula (Pleosporales, Dothideomycetes), Distoseptispora (Sordariomycetes) and Pseudosporidesmium (Sordariomycetes). In addition, Dendryphion aquaticum, D. submersum, Distoseptispora fluminicola, D. aquatica, Kirschsteiniothelia submersa, Neotorula aquatica, Sporidesmium aquaticum, S. submersum and S. fluminicola are introduced as new species. Pseudosporidesmium knawiae comb. nov. is proposed to accommodate Sporidesmium knawiae in Sordariomycetes. The polyphyletic nature of Dendryphion, Sporidesmium and Torula-like species are partially resolved, but further sampling with fresh collections and molecular data of species are needed to obtain a natural classification.