Lulworthia atlantica: a new species supported by molecular phylogeny and morphological analysis

ABSTRACT

This study presents morphological and molecular evidence for the establishment of a new species of Lulworthia based on the evaluation of 11 isolates of Lulworthiales collected in two marinas on the west coast of Portugal initially classified as Lulworthia sp. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods were applied to obtain phylogenetic trees for 18S-28S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 = internal transcribed spacer [ITS]) nuc rDNA. The isolates consistently grouped together in a distinct and highly supported clade; all other Lulworthiales analyzed, including the available sequences of Lulworthia spp., segregated separately. These results were supported by common and distinctive morphological characters and enabled recognition and description of the new species Lulworthia atlantica. Two Portuguese isolates were confirmed as Lulworthia cf. purpurea, and two were confirmed as asexual morphs of Zalerion maritima.

KEYWORDS:

• Lulworthiales
• marine fungi
• taxonomy

Supplemental data

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Acknowledgments

The administrations of the Cascais and Sesimbra marinas are thanked for authorizing and supporting our field work. We also thank the Bioinformatics Unit of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, especially Paulo Almeida, for the assistance on the TreeBASE submission. We are thankful to Dr. Lia Ascensão and Dr. António Pedro Matos for the support concerning the processing of perithecia samples and images, and to Dr. Ana Amorim for the accessibility to the Zeiss Axiovert 200 microscope, Zeiss Axiocam digital camera and Axiovision software. Final editing of images is thanked to Dr. André Paixão. Thanks are due to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017), Ce3C (OE/BIA/UI0329), and FCT/MEC for their financial support through national funds and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020. Finally, the authors would also like to recognize how much the comments and criticism of the Editors and anonymous Reviewers were helpful for the improvement of this manuscript.