Ten new species of Macalpinomyces on Eriachne in northern Australia

ABSTRACT

Macalpinomyces was established in 1977, with the type species M. eriachnes described from a specimen collected in northern Australia on the grass Eriachne sp. in 1855. Subsequently, M. eriachnes has been reported on more than 21 species of Eriachne in northern Australia. In this study, a polyphasic approach was employed to determine whether M. eriachnes masked cryptic diversity. On the basis of morphology, multilocus phylogeny, and coalescent methods of generalized mixed Yule-coalescent (GMYC) and Poisson tree processes (PTP) models, 26 specimens of Macalpinomyces on 13 species of Eriachne held in Australian herbaria were studied. Consequently, 10 new species of Macalpinomyces that satisfied the phylogenetic species recognition criteria are described.

KEYWORDS:

• GMYC
• phylogeny
• PTP
• smut fungi
• taxonomy
• Ustilaginaceae

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Kálmán Vánky (HUV) for lending specimens and Dr. Begoña Aguirre-Hudson (K) for providing high-resolution scanned images of the type of Ustilago australis (K(M) 146202/3). Dr. Andrew Geering and Marjan Shivas are thanked for assistance in specimen collection. Dr. Yuan-Ying Su and Ms. Fang Liu are thanked for technical assistance.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31670017), China. Y.M. Li acknowledges the external Cooperation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GJHZ1310) for supporting her visit to Australia.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31670017), China. Y.M. Li acknowledges the external Cooperation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GJHZ1310) for supporting her visit to Australia.