Novel collophorina-like genera and species from Prunus trees and vineyards in Germany

Strains with a yeast-like appearance were frequently collected in two surveys on the biodiversity of fungi in Germany, either associated with necroses in wood of Prunus trees in orchards in Saxony, Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg or captured in spore traps mounted on grapevine shoots in a vineyard in Rhineland-Palatinate. The morphology of the strains was reminiscent of the genus Collophorina: all strains produced aseptate conidia on integrated conidiogenous cells directly on hyphae, on discrete phialides, adelophialides and by microcyclic conidiation, while in some strains additionally endoconidia or conidia in conidiomata were observed. Blastn searches with the ITS region placed the strains in the Leotiomycetes close to Collophorina spp. Analyses based on morphological and multi-locus sequence data (LSU, ITS, EF-1α, GAPDH) revealed that the 152 isolates from wood of Prunus spp. belong to five species including C. paarla, C. africana and three new species. A further ten isolates from spore traps belonged to seven new species, of which one was isolated from Prunus wood as well. However, a comparison with both LSU and ITS sequence data of these collophorina-like species with reference sequences from further Leotiomycetes revealed the genus Collophorina to be polyphyletic and the strains to pertain to several genera within the Phacidiales. Collophorina paarla and C. euphorbiae are transferred to the newly erected genera Pallidophorina and Ramoconidiophora, respectively. The new genera Capturomyces, Variabilispora and Vexillomyces are erected to accommodate five new species isolated from spore traps. In total nine species were recognised as new to science and described as Collophorina badensis, C. germanica, C. neorubra, Capturomyces funiculosus, Ca. luteus, Tympanis inflata, Variabilispora flava, Vexillomyces palatinus and V. verruculosus.