Gyromitra is a widespread genus of macroscopic apothecial ascomycetes whose taxa may be mycorrhizal, saprophytic or parasitic. Nuclear ribosomal 28S large subunit sequence data from 35 specimens from North America, along with sequences available in GenBank, were used in maximum-parsimony, maximum-likelihood and Bayesian analyses to reconstruct a phylogeny of Gyromitra in North America. Gyromitr...

Decomposition of wood is an important component of global carbon cycling. Most wood decomposition models are based on tree characteristics and environmental conditions; however, they do not include community dynamics of fungi that are the major wood decomposers. We examined the factors explaining variation in sapwood decay in oak tree stumps two and five years after cutting. Wood moisture conte...

Pines (Pinus spp.) in Florida are subject to infection by a variety of root-infecting and root disease fungi (Barnard et al 1985; Barnard et al 1991). Among the least known and perhaps most poorly understood of these root-inhabiting fungi are members of the ascomycete genus Ophiostoma, with anamorphs belonging to the more commonly observed formgenus Leptographium. This highly complex and intern...

Glutamic proteases are a distinct, and recently re-classified, group of peptidases that are thought to be found only in fungi. We have identified and analysed the distribution of over 20 putative glutamic proteases from all fungal species whose genomes have been sequenced so far. Although absent from the Saccharomycetales class, glutamic proteases appear to be present in all other ascomycetes s...

During an investigation of saprobic microfungi in leaf litter from an Australian rainforest, five new species of Thozetella, namely T. acerosa, T. boonjiensis, T. falcata, T. gigantea and T. queenslandica, were identified and these are described and illustrated here. The morphology of specimens derived from cultures grown under different conditions and from natural substrata was compared. DNA s...

We conducted a species diversity study of the hypogeous Ascomycetes of Israel. The hypogeous Ascomycetes in Israel include members of the families Pyronemataceae, Pezizaceae, and Tuberaceae, which are represented by seven species: Hydnocystis piligera, Terfezia arenaria, T. claveryi, T. oligosperma, Tirmania africana, Tuber asa, and T. nitidum; only T. asa is new to Israeli mycobiota. Synonymy,...

The phylogenetic position of Trypetheliaceae was studied using partial sequences of the mtSSU and nuLSU rDNA of 100 and 110 ascomycetes, respectively, including 48 newly obtained sequences. Our analysis confirms Trypetheliaceae as monophyletic and places the family in Dothideomycetes. Pyrenulaceae, which were previously classified with Trypetheliaceae in Pyrenulales or Melanommatales, are suppo...

Cladonia peziziformis (With.) J.R. Laundon was collected from Baega mountain, Jeonnam Province, Korea in 2008. It is characterized by short and slender podetia with verruculose surface, split along the sides. Apothecia large, pale brown, always growing on the top of the podetia. Primary squamules shell-like, thick, and convex. Fumarprotocetraric acid contained in thallus. This is the first reco...

In heterothallic Ascomycota, two opposite but distinct mating types control all sexual processes. Using mating crosses, mating types were assigned to ten isolates of the heterothallic fungal species Ophiostoma quercus. Primers were subsequently designed to target the MAT1-1-1, MAT1-1-3 (of the mating type 1 idiomorph), and MAT1-2-1 (of the mating type 2 idiomorph) genes in these isolates. Resul...

It is challenging to apply the tenets of individuality to filamentous fungi: a fungal mycelium can contain millions of genetically diverse but totipotent nuclei, each capable of founding new mycelia. Moreover, a single mycelium can potentially stretch over kilometres, and it is unlikely that its distant parts share resources or have the same fitness. Here, we directly measure how a single mycel...