Are Melanomma pulvis-pyrius and Trematosphaeria pertusa congeneric?

Abstract

The neotypes of Trematosphaeria pertusa and Melanomma pulvis-pyrius have been examined and are fully described. New collections of M. pulvis-pyrius and T. pertusa with living cultures have been obtained and these are assigned as epitypes with ex-epitypes. Cellular pseudoparaphyses as compared to trabeculae were observed in the neotypes of M. pulvis-pyrius and T. pertusa. The traditional concept of Melanommataceae as based on Melanomma as having trabeculate pseudoparaphyses is therefore imprecise. This study confirms that Melanomma and Trematosphaeria clearly belong in Pleosporales, however inclusion at the family level is partially resolved. The type species of Melanomma-M. pulvis-pyrius and Trematosphaeria-T. pertusa fall into two separate well-supported groups. Both morphology and molecular data support the fact that they are separate genera. We present a new colour coding scheme to indicate robustness of phylogenetic trees with bold with light blue background representing type strains (e.g. holotypes, epitypes, isotypes), bold with yellow background representing fungi with verified vouchered specimens, red background representing doubtful strains and lack of a coloured background representing unverified GenBank accessions. We illustrate how this scheme can increase confidence in conclusions drawn from phylogenetics trees (e.g. in Pleosporaceae and Botryosphaeriales) and suggest that the fungal community use type, authentic or verified strains or deposit voucher specimens in public collections for sequences deposited in GenBank whenever possible. We recommend that the colour coding scheme for phylogenetic trees be adopted, with possible modification in future publications as it will improve understanding and reliability of the phylogenetic trees.