Ten new species of Calonectria from Indonesia and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Vietnam and Indonesia have rapidly growing and extensive plantation forestry programs, especially of Acacia spp. and Eucalyptus spp. As these plantations expand, the threat from pests and diseases also increases. Calonectria species are among those pathogens causing diseases of trees in plantations and nurseries in these countries. Extensive surveys were conducted across plantations and nurseries of Vietnam and parts of Indonesia, where a large number of Calonectria isolates were retrieved from diseased leaves and soils associated with symptomatic trees. The aim of this study was to identify and resolve the phylogenetic relationships among these isolates using DNA sequence comparisons of four gene regions as well as morphological characters. From a collection of 165 isolates, the study revealed five known and 10 undescribed species. The relatively high diversity of Calonectria species found in this study supports the view that many more species in this genus remain to be discovered in other areas of Southeast Asia.

KEYWORDS:

• Acacia
• Eucalyptus
• fungal diversity
• phylogeny
• taxonomy
• 10 new taxa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the members of the Forest Protection Research Centre (FPRC), Vietnam, for helping with the surveys and fungal isolations.

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Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge financial support from the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP) and the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB), South Africa.