Atkinson et al.—New species of Chaetosphaeria from New Zealand

New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

Unusual new Chaetosphaeria species from New Zealand: intrafamilial diversity and elucidations of the Chaetosphaeriaceae – Lasiosphaeriaceae relationship (Sordariomycetes, Ascomycotina)

Toni J. Atkinson

Department of Botany
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
toni@botany.otago.ac.nz

Andrew N. Miller

Illinois Natural History Survey
Section for Biodiversity
Champaign, Illinois, USA

Sabine M. Huhndorf

Department of Botany
The Field Museum
Chicago, USA

David A. Orlovich

Department of Botany
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

Abstract Chaetosphaeria albida, C. bombycina, and C. metallicans are described and compared with other Chaetosphaeria taxa using morphological and molecular methods. The fresh ascomata of C. albida are almost white, translucent, and aereolate; they are papillate with a distinctive 4-layered peridium, and the ascospores are scolecosporous, multiseptate, and hyaline. C. bombycina is similar, but the fresh ascomata are light fawn-grey with a reflective silken appearance, non-papillate, and the similar peridium is 3-layered. C. metallicans has ascomata which are blue-black, shiny and metallic when fresh; the thick peridium is heavily melanised, and the ascospores are straight to allantoid, 3-septate, and hyaline. The scolecosporous ascospores of C. albida and C. bombycina would have traditionally referred these taxa to Lasiosphaeria. However, like C. metallicans, they lack a peridial tomentum, and have asci with light-refractive, non-amyloid apical rings, without a sub-apical globule. Despite the major differences in spore shape and ascomal wall structure, analyses of the LSU and ITS regions of ribosomal DNA suggest that genetically all three fall within Chaetosphaeria, near to C. raciborskii, and in a sister clade to the type species C. innumera. The placement of these species considerably expands current morphological conceptions of Chaetosphaeria, particularly in terms of ascomal wall appearance and structure, and confirms the existence of a scolecosporous group within the genus. In the search for morphological characters which mimic genetic relationships, this study further elucidates the relationship between the Chaetosphaeriaceae and the Lasiosphaeriaceae.

Keywords Chaetosphaeria; Chaetosphaeriaceae; Lasiosphaeriaceae; Sordariales; LSU; ITS; systematics; New Zealand

B06011; Online publication date 20 December 2007; Received 30 March 2006; accepted 23 August 2007

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