Vittaliana mangrovei Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma, 2019

Devadatha, Bandarupalli, Mehta, Nikita, Wanasinghe, Dhanushka N., Baghela, Abhishek & Sarma, V. Venkateswara, 2019, Vittaliana mangrovei Devadatha, Nikita, A. Baghela & V. V. Sarma, gen. nov, sp. nov. (Phaeosphaeriaceae), from mangroves near Pondicherry (India), based on morphology and multigene phylogeny, Cryptogamie, Mycologie 20 (7), pp. 117-132 : 124-125

Vittaliana mangrovei Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma , sp. nov.

TYPUS. — India. Pondicherry, Veerampattinam mangroves, on decaying wood of Avicennia marina (Forsk.) Vierh. , ( Avicenniaceae ), 20. I.2017, B. Devadatha (holo-, AMH [ AMH-9953 ]), ex-type living culture = NFCCI-4251 .

INDEX FUNGORUM NUMBER. — IF556888.

FACESOFFUNGI NUMBER. — FoF 04669.

ETYMOLOGY. — Referring to the habitat where the fungus thrives.

CULTURE CHARACTERISTICS. — Ascospores germinating on seawater agar within 24 hours, germ tubes arising from terminal ends of the ascospore. Colonies on malt extract agar were slow growing, reaching 2 cm diameter after 25 days of incubation at room temperature; white becoming light brown at maturity; surface convex, undulate, irregular, reverse pale orange in the center and hyaline at margins. Mycelium hyaline 1-4 µm diameter, hyaline, branched, septate, not producing asexual or sexual propagules even after incubation for 3 months at room temperature.

DESCRIPTION

Saprobic on decaying wood of Avicennia marina .

Sexual morph

Ascomata. 125-250 µm high, 150-300 µm diam. (ẍ = 166 × 195 µm, n = 10), semi-immersed to erumpent, globose to subglobose, gregarious to solitary, coriaceous, black.

Ostiole. 25-60 µm long, 10-20 µm diam. (ẍ = 42.5 × 15 µm, n = 10).

Peridium. equal in thickness, 25-50 µm (ẍ = 37 µm, n = 10) wide, comprising several layers, an inner stratum with hyaline to light brown cells of textura angularis and an outer stratum with light brown to dark brown cells of textura angularis fusing with the host tissues.

Hamathecium. composed of 1-3 µm (ẍ =1.75 µm, n = 10) wide, septate, unbranched, cellular pseudoparaphyses resembling hyphae embedded in a gelatinous matrix.

Asci. 100-160 × 7-15 µm (ẍ = 125 × 10 µm, n = 40), 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindrical to clavate, short pedicellate, apically rounded and lacking an ocular chamber.

Ascospores. 17-25 × 4-7 µm (ẍ = 20 × 6 µm, n = 50), uni-to biseriately arranged, partially overlapping, phragmosporous, 5-6 distoseptate, constricted at the 4th septum, lower most cells longer than other cells, hyaline to light-brown when young, becoming yellow to golden-yellow at maturity, smooth-walled, cylindrical, rounded at the apices, tapering to a more narrowly rounded base, lacking any ornamentation or mucilaginous sheaths.

Asexual morph

Undetermined.

NOTES

Vittaliana mangrovei Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma , gen. nov., sp. nov., resembles Phaeosphaeriopsis , particularly P. glaucopunctata (Greville) M.P.S. Câmara, M.E. Palm & A.W. Ramaley , in having globose to subglobose, gregarious ascomata; fissitunicate, cylindrical to clavate, short pedicellate asci; oblong to cylindrical, phragmosporous ascospores. However, the new species is distinct in having a thick-walled peridium in the ascomata, longer asci; ascospores that are distoseptate, distinctly constricted at the 4th septum, lower most cells longer than other cells and lacking any ornamentation or mucilaginous sheaths. Whereas the genus Phaeosphaeriopsis is characterized by immersed to erumpent ascomata that are often surrounded by septate, brown hyphae extending into the host tissues; ascospores that are usually without constriction, apical cells often longer than others, ornamented as echinulate, punctate or verruculose and are surrounded by thin mucilaginous sheaths. The phylogenetic analysis in the present study showed that Vittaliana Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma , gen. nov., is close to the genus Italica ( Fig. 1 ). However, Italica differs from it in having eccentric ascomata, thin peridium, branched pseudoparaphyses in hamathecium, short pedicellate asci that apically have a minute ocular chamber; ascospores that are muriform, widest at the middle, with or without a mucilaginous sheath ( Wanasinghe et al. 2018). The new species shares some similarities with Vagicola arundinis Phukhamsakda, Camporesi & K.D. Hyde in having yellowish distoseptate ascospores constricted at the fourth cell ( Thambugala et al. 2017). However, Vagicola arundinis is different from it in having narrowly fusiform ascospores tapering towards the ends with (5-) 8-9-septate ascopores while the new species has 5-6 distoseptate, somewhat cylindrical ascospores and lack mucilaginous sheaths. Our phylogenetic analysis also showed that Vagicola is distantly placed from Vittaliana Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma , gen. nov. ( Fig. 1 ). The combined LSU, SSU, TEF1a and ITS phylogeny also showed that Vittaliana mangrovei Devadatha, Nikita, A.Baghela & V.V.Sarma , gen. nov., sp. nov., grouped within the Phaeosphaeriaceae as a monotypic genus ( Fig. 1 ).

Figures

FIG. 1. — Phylogenetic tree generated from Bayesian analysis of concatenated LSU, SSU, TEF1α and ITS sequence data of Phaeosphaeriaceae. Values above the branches indicate maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood bootstrap ≥ 70%, (MP/ML). Values at the third positions, respectively, above or below the branches represent posterior probabilities (PP ≥ 0.95) from Bayesian inference analysis. The new isolate is in blue.The tree is rooted with Leptosphaeria doliolum (Pers.) Cesati & De Notaris and Paraleptosphaeria dryadis (Johanson) Gruyter, Aveskamp & Verkley.