Pleosporales » Didymellaceae

Neoascochyta

Neoascochyta Qian Chen & L. Cai, in Chen, Jiang, Zhang, Cai & Crous, Stud. Mycol. 82: 198 (2015)

Citation when using this entry, Chen C. et al. in prep. – An updated monograph of Coelomycetes, Mycosphere

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi number, MycoBank, GenBank           

Classification: Didymellaceae, Pleosporales, Dothideomycetes, Ascomycota, Fungi

Saprobic or pathogenic on terrestrial plants or from soil or human bodies. The sexual morph is characterised by pseudothecial ascomata, which are immersed or erumpent, separate or aggregated, globose to subglobose and ostiolate. Asci are 8-spored, bitunicate, short pedicellate or sessile, cylindrical to subclavate, and slightly curved. Ascospores are hyaline, biseriate or irregular uniseriate, 1-septate, constricted at the septum, symmetrical or asymmetrical, and cylindrical to ovoid and ellipsoidal (Chen et al. 2015). The asexual morph is characterised by the immersed to semi-immersed pycnidial conidiomata, which are dark brown to black, unilocular, glabrous, separate or aggregated, and globose to subglobose or ovoid and ostiolate. The ostiole is single and located in the centre. The pycnidial wall is comprised of textura angularis to textura globosa, thick-walled and dark brown to hyaline cells. Conidiophores are reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells are enteroblastic and phialidic, smooth-walled, determinate, doliiform to ampulliform, or short obpyriform, and hyaline. Conidia are hyaline, smooth-walled, guttulate, 0–1-septate, variable shape, obclavate-ovoid to ellipsoidal, or cylindrical to subcylindrical, and or fusiform (Chen et al. 2015, Li et al. 2020).

Type species: Neoascochyta exitialis (Morini) Qian Chen & L. Cai, in Chen, Jiang, Zhang, Cai & Crous, Stud. Mycol. 82: 200 (2015)

= Sphaerella exitialis Morini, Nuovo G. bot. ital. 18(1): 37 (1886)

= Didymella exitialis (Morini) E. Müll., Phytopath. Z. 19: 407 (1952)

= Mycosphaerella exitialis (Morini) Tomilin, Nov. sist. Niz. Rast. 3: 172 (1966)

Notes: Neoascochyta was introduced by Chen et al. (2015) based on N. exitialis as the type species. At the same time, Chen et al. (2015) accepted five species (N. desmazieri, N. europaea, N. exitialis, N. graminicola, and N. paspali) to Neoascochyta based on LSU, ITS, rpb2 and tub2 datasets. Li et al. (2020) regarded N. adenii should be excluded from Neoascochyta based on morphology (setose conidiomata) and phylogeny, but they did not show the phylogenetic tree in that study. Neoascochyta species association with various Poaceae plant species also can be found in the macroalgae Fucus sp, tea plant and so on (Golzar et al. 2019, Gonçalves et al. 2020, Wang et al. 2024, Wilson et al. 2020). Currently, there are 18 species listed in Neoascochyta in Species Fungorum (July 2024). There are more than 500 sequence data available for Neoascochyta in GenBank (July 2024). The updated taxonomic treatment of this genus is Didymellaceae, in Pleosporales (Dothideomycetes) (Wijayawardene et al. 2022).

For all accepted species: see Species Fungorum, and search Neoascochyta.