Abstract Detail

Mycological Section

Seifert, Keith A. [1], Atkinson, Toni J. [2], Hughes, Stanley J. [1].

The sooty mould genus Capnofrasera and the phylogenetic enigma of the Metacapnodiaceae.

Sooty moulds are conspicuous but poorly understood Dothideomycetes (Ascomycota). Pleiomorphy confuses their taxonomy, with one species often producing a teleomorph and/or multiple hyphomycete and/or coelomycete synanamorphs. Their tendency to grow in colonies with several species intermingled increases the challenge. Attempts at culturing on agar are usually unsuccessful and there are few identified DNA sequences in GenBank. Capnofrasera is a monotypic, synnematous genus with highly plastic conidiogenesis, typified by the broadly distributed C. dendryphioides. We add four species to Capnofrasera, including a species long known to Scandinavian field mycologists and originally described as Coccosporium aucupariae. Teleomorphs are so far unknown for Capnofrasera species, but the morphology of the anamorphs and hyphae do not conform well with existing delimitations of sooty mould families. Of the four families recognized in the taxonomic system of Hughes (1976), the taxonomy of the Metacapnodiaceae is based on herbarium specimens, with no cultures or sequences available. Species in this family produce characteristic epiphytic colonies associated with honey dew excreted by scale insects, phialidic microconidia, various phragmoconidial or stauroconidial synanamorphs, and characteristic shiny, bead-like, dark hyphae. Preliminary results of an unconventional means of culturing species of Metacapnodiaceae will be presented. Most of our attempts to sequence directly from herbarium specimens yielded sequences of other fungi, but a few putative rDNA sequences of members of the Metacapnodiaceae were obtained from freshly collected specimens and will be compared with sequences obtained from 454 pyrosequencing of New Zealand sooty mould colonies analyzed by Dhami et al. (2013).

1 - Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, 960 Carling Ave., Ottawa, ON, K1A0C6, Canada
2 - Otago Mycological Institute, Warrington, Otago, New Zealand

Keywords:
Dothideomycetes
Sooty moulds
taxonomy
Uncultured fungi.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 40
Location: Salon 1/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Tuesday, July 28th, 2015
Time: 10:15 AM
Number: 40001
Abstract ID:497
Candidate for Awards:None