The class Eurotiomycetes (Ascomycota, Pezizomycotina) is a monophyletic group comprising two major clades of very different ascomycetous fungi: (i) the subclass Eurotiomycetidae, a clade that contains most of the fungi previously recognized as Plectomycetes because of their mostly enclosed ascomata and prototunicate asci; and (ii) the subclass Chaetothyriomycetidae, a group of fungi that produc...

Seed microbiome includes special endophytic or epiphytic microbial taxa associated with seeds, which affects seed germination, plant growth, and health. Here, we analyzed the core microbiome of 21 Salvia miltiorrhiza seeds from seven different geographic origins using 16S rDNA and ITS amplicon sequencing, followed by bioinformatics analysis. The whole bacterial microbiome was classified into 17...

The peanut leaf spot pathogen Passalora arachidicola (Mycosphaerella arachidis) is known to produce dothistromin, a mycotoxin related to aflatoxin. This is a feature shared with the pine needle pathogen Dothistroma septosporum (Mycosphaerella pini). Dothistromin biosynthesis in D. septosporum commences at an unusually early stage of growth in culture compared to most other fungal secondary meta...

Fungi in the sooty blotch and flyspeck (SBFS) complex cause blemishes on apple and pear fruit that result in economic losses for growers. The SBFS fungi colonise the epicuticular wax layer of pomaceous fruit but do not invade the cuticle. Fungi causing fuliginous and punctate mycelial types on apple are particularly difficult to identify based on morphological criteria because many species in t...

This study assessed the diversity and distribution of fungal communities associated with seven lichen species in the Ny-Ålesund Region (Svalbard, High Arctic) using Roche 454 pyrosequencing with fungal-specific primers targeting the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal rRNA gene. Lichen-associated fungal communities showed high diversity, with a total of 42,259 reads belong...

Cladosporium sphaerospermum, a dematiaceous saprophytic fungus commonly found in diverse environments, has been reported to cause allergy and other occasional diseases in humans. However, its basic biology and genetic information are largely unexplored. A clinical isolate C. sphaerospermum genome, UM 843, was re-sequenced and combined with previously generated sequences to form a model 26.89 Mb...

Plant pathogens use a complex arsenal of weapons, such as toxic secondary metabolites, to invade and destroy their hosts. Knowledge of how secondary metabolite pathways evolved is central to understanding the evolution of host specificity. The secondary metabolite dothistromin is structurally similar to aflatoxins and is produced by the fungal pine pathogen Dothistroma septosporum. Our study fo...

Through a culture-based survey of living sapwood and leaves of rubber trees (Hevea spp.) in remote forests of Peru, we discovered a new major lineage of Ascomycota, equivalent to a class rank. Multilocus phylogenetic analyses reveal that this new lineage originated during the radiation of the 'Leotiomyceta', which resulted not only in the evolution of the Arthoniomycetes, Dothideomycetes, Eurot...