Laboulbeniales parasitic on American small carrion beetles: new species of Corethromyces, Diphymyces, and Rodaucea

ABSTRACT

Ten new species of Laboulbeniales parasitic on small carrion beetles (Coleoptera, Leiodidae, Cholevinae) from the American continent are described: Corethromyces bernardii on Dissochaetus spp. from Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and the USA; Diphymyces anthracinus on Ptomaphagus brevior from the USA; D. blackwelliae on Ptomaphagus giaquintoi from Guatemala; D. costaricensis on Adelopsis sp. from Costa Rica; D. dichromus on Adelopsis marinae from Argentina; D. newtonii on Ptomaphagus fumosus from the USA; D. obesus on Ptomaphagus brevior from the USA; Diphymyces perreaui on Ptomaphagus nevadicus from the USA; D. polycarpus on Paulipalpina pillahuata from Peru; and Rodaucea hermanii on Adelopsis sp. from Costa Rica. The hosts for all 10 species have been retrieved from museum collections (1 was collected in the field as well). The following new combination is proposed: Rodaucea bruchii, bringing the number of species in the recently established genus Rodaucea to three.

KEYWORDS:

• Ascomycota
• Cholevinae
• Leiodidae
• museum collection study
• parasitic fungi
• taxonomy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to express our gratitude to Lee H. Herman for curatorial support and valuable discussions, Alfred Newton for the specimens of Ptomaphagus fumosus, Michel Perreau for identifying insects carrying Laboulbeniales, Donald H. Pfister for critically reading and improving a previous version of the manuscript, and José M. Salgado for supplying and identifying South American host insects. The authors thank Sergi Santamaria for the pictures in Plate 1 and for bringing to their attention the case of “Corethromyces” bruchii.

FUNDING

The authors acknowledge the following funding sources: Collection Study Grant (2013) and Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Grant (2014) from the American Museum of Natural History (D.H.) and Geneva Sayre Fund of the Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany (W.R.).

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the following funding sources: Collection Study Grant (2013) and Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Grant (2014) from the American Museum of Natural History (D.H.) and Geneva Sayre Fund of the Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany (W.R.).