Species diversity, taxonomy, and phylogeny of Gymnosporangium in China

ABSTRACT

Gymnosporangium is a group of plant fungal pathogens that cause rust diseases on many economically important fruit trees. Most Gymnosporangium are heteroecious and demicyclic, producing four morphologically diverse spore stages on two taxonomically unrelated host plants, the Cupressaceae and Rosaceae. The complex life cycle and heteroecism make it difficult to investigate the species within Gymnosporangium. To determine the taxonomy, phylogeny, and species diversity of Gymnosporangium in China, a large collection of 672 specimens were analyzed using a combination of morphological observations and phylogenetic analyses. In total, 27 Gymnosporangium species from China are documented here, including 22 known species, one new combination, one new record, and three new species. The study also documents a novel aeciospore surface structure with an irregular surface that is described here as “surfy.”

KEYWORDS:

• Plant pathogen
• Pucciniales
• rust fungi
• 4 new taxa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Cheng-Ming Tian for his dedicated contributions in collecting the specimens. We thank Andy Wilson, Brandon Matheny, and two reviewers for suggestions and correction to draft versions of the manuscript.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31870628; no. 31470646).