English
Two Novel and Five New Records of Pleosporales from Freshwater Habitats in Korea
Hye Won Yu and Hyang Burm Lee*
Environmental Microbiology Lab, Dept. of Agricultural Biological Chemistry, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, Korea
*Email: hblee@jnu.ac.kr
Freshwater ecosystems are recognized as important habitats for diverse fungal communities. However, the diversity of freshwater fungi in Korea remains poorly understood. The order Pleosporales is an ecologically important lineage within the class Dothideomycetes, including phytopathogens, saprobes, and endophytes. During a survey of Pleosporales diversity from freshwater habitats in Korea, a total of 160 fungal strains were obtained. Out of them, two strains are new to science and five strains are unrecorded species. Based on their morphological characteristics and multi-locus phylogenetic analyses (ITS, LSU rDNA, BenA, RPB2, and TEF1-α), these strains were identified as two novel species of Epicoccum and Paraphoma, along with five unrecorded species, Anteaglonium queenslandicum, Didymella aquatica, Lorrainsmithia pennsylvanica, Nigrograna locuta-pollinis, and Nothophoma pruni. Notably, this study reports Lorrainsmithia as a rare genus in which only two species are known worldwide, for the first time in Korea. It also shows the discoveries of fungal species from poorly studied freshwater habitats are of significance, contributing to the expanded diversity of Pleosporales in the country. Detailed morphological descriptions and phylogenetic trees of these strains will be presented in the poster.
