Sclerococcum

Calabon, Mark S., Jones, E. B. Gareth, Pang, Ka-Lai, Abdel-Wahab, Mohamed A., Jin, Jing, Devadatha, Bandarupalli, Sadaba, Resurreccion B., Apurillo, Carlo Chris & Hyde, Kevin D., 2023, Updates on the classification and numbers of marine fungi, Botanica Marina (Warsaw, Poland) 66 (4), pp. 213-238 : 220

2.4.3 Sclerococcum

Traditionally Sclerococcum comprised lichenized species that produce sporodochial asexual morphs ( Diederich et al. 2013; Hawksworth 1975, 1979), while Dactylospora species are sexual fungi that produce black apothecial ascomata with asci covered with an external, amyloid apical gelatinous cap ( Hafellner 1979). Molecular phylogenetics of the type species of Dactylospora , D. parasitica , placed it in a monophyletic clade with the type species of Sclerococcum , Sclerococcum sphaerale , and the two genera were merged into the older genus name Sclerococcum under the family Dactylosporaceae and the recently described Sclerococcales ( Diederich et al. 2018; Pino-Bodas et al. 2017; R´eblová et al. 2017). Diederich et al. (2018) listed sixty-four Sclerococcum species and Joshi (2021) described two new species of Sclerococcum from India, so that 66 species of the genus are known worldwide. Of these, four species were recorded from marine habitats: S. canariense , S. haliotrephum , S. mangrovei , S. vrijmoediae . Marine species are saprobic and recorded from driftwood and decaying, submerged parts of the mangroves ( Jones et al. 1999; Kohlmeyer 1967; Kohlmeyer and Kohlmeyer 1965; Pang et al. 2014).

Nine discomycete species have been previously described from the marine environment, of which four belong to the genus Sclerococcum . Apothecia of the four Sclerococcum species are similar, however, they differ in the ascospore shape, ornamentation, and the presence/ absence of appendages ( Jones et al. 1999; Kohlmeyer and Kohlmeyer 1965; Kohlmeyer and Volkmann-Kohlmeyer 1998; Pang et al. 2014). Ascospores of Sclerococcum haliotrephum are ellipsoidal with uneven cells; while they are ellipsoidal to subglobose in S. vrijmoediae and elongateellipsoidal in both Sclerococcum mangrovei and Sclerococcum canariense . Ascospores of Sclerococcum canariense and Sclerococcum vrijmoediae are appendaged, while they are ornamented in S. haliotrephum and S. mangrovei .

Kohlmeyer (1967) recorded Sclerococcum canariense from driftwood collected from Tenerife, Canary Islands and misidentified it as Banhegyia uralensis . Kohlmeyer and Volkmann-Kohlmeyer (1998) described the taxon in Dactylospora as D. canariensis as the second marine member of the genus. Olariaga et al. (2019) placed all non-lichenized Dactylospora species with clavate to cylindrical asci covered with an amyloid gelatinous apical cap in Sclerococcum including D. canariensis . The molecular data of S. canariense are unknown and the sequences of relevant genes are needed in order to confirm its taxonomic placement.