Addition of two new species of Pestalotiopsis to the fungal diversity in India.
Deeba Kamil, Devi T. P., Nita Mathur, Singh O. P., Pankaj Pandey, Prabhakaran N., Vijay Patil
Author Affiliation: Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India.
Journal of Mycopathological Research 50 : 185-191
Abstract : Two new coelomycetous fungi viz. Pestalotiopsis anacardii sp. nov. and Pestalotiopsis termitahi sp. nov., one is causing leaf spot on mango (Mangifera indica L.) and another is growing as saprophyte on termite nest in the tea agro-ecosystem were isolated from two different geographic locations of India. Both the fungi were producing black, carbonaceous acervuli. Conidia were fusiform, straight to curved, 4-5 celled, crowned with situlae. Exterior cells hyaline, intermediate cells are variably coloured (pale brown to black). Simple and hyaline pedicels present, attached to the base of the conidia. Pestalotiopsis anacardii is morphologically distinguished from similar species such as P. albomaculans, P. palmarum, P. crassiuscula, P. photiniae and P. virgatula in respect to size of condia, number and size of setulae. Pestalotiopsis termitarii is also distinct from similar species viz. Pestalotiopsis versicolar, P. microspora, P. sydowiana and P. virgatula on the basis of different morphological characters. Regions of the ITS (ITS1 and ITS2) were amplified from genomic DNA using PCR. DNA characters were analysed using maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood criteria. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that both the species are also phylogenetically distinct from similar species.