Dictyosporium
Dictyosporium Corda, Weitenweber’s Beitr. Nat.: 87 (1836).
Index Fungorum number: IF 8001; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08210, 62 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2022), 24 species with molecular data.
Saprobic on decaying wood and plant debris in terrestrial and freshwater habitats. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecial, superficial, solitary or scattered, globose to subglobose, dark brown to black, collapsed when dry, ostiolate. Peridium membranaceous, composed of several layers of dark brown, small cells of textura angularis or textura epidermoidea. Pseudoparaphyses numerous, cellular, subcylindrical, hyaline, septate. Asci bitunicate, fissitunicate, clavate to cylindrical or saccate, pedicellate, apically rounded with an ocular chamber. Ascospores biseriate, fusiform, elongated-ellipsoid, septate, hyaline, with or without mucilaginous sheath. Asexual morph: Hyphomycetous. Colonies punctiform, sporodochial, effuse or compact, olive, brown to black, glistening, with immersed mycelium. Conidiophores micronematous, mononematous, flexuous, irregularly branched, hyaline to brown, smooth, sometimes reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells holoblastic, monoblastic, integrated, terminal or sometimes intercalary, determinate, cylindrical, doliiform, spherical or subspherical, hyaline to pale brown. Conidia solitary, dry, acrogenous or sometimes pleurogenous, cheiroid, complanate, olive to brown, smooth, multiseptate (adapted from Boonmee et al. 2016).
Type species: Dictyosporium elegans Corda.
Notes: Dictyosporium is characterised by perithecial, superficial ascomata, clavate to cylindrical or saccate asci and elongated-ellipsoid, septate, hyaline ascospores. Corda (in Witenweber 1836) placed Dictyosporium in Dictyosporiaceae. Damon (1952) re-studied the type specimen of D. elegans, provided a monograph of Dictyosporium and accepted seven species along with descriptions, illustrations and a key to accepted species. Sutton (1985) mentioned Dictyosporium when he studied about deuteromycete genera with cheiroid or digitate brown conidia. Goh et al. (1999) revised Dictyosporium, accepted 22 species and gave a dichotomous key. Cai et al. (2003) and Whitton et al. (2012) added new species to Dictyosporium and also provided keys to species. Whitton et al. (2012) also transferred and synonymized several Dictyosporium such as D. circinatum, D. minus and D. verrucosum to other genera. The generic circumscription of Dictyosporium is quite broad when considering the conidial size, appendage, sheath and rows. Dictyosporium is a heterogeneous genus and the morphological characters of several species deviate from the type species, D. elegans (Boonmee et al. 2016). Tsui et al. (2006) reported that Dictyosporium sensu lato is paraphyletic based on phylogenetic analyses of ITS and LSU rDNA sequence data. Tanaka et al. (2015) revised numerous families including Dictyosporiaceae based on a multi-gene phylogeny of LSU, SSU and TEF-1 sequence data and reported that Dictyosporiaceae is a strongly supported lineage in the suborder Massarineae. Boonmee et al. (2016) revised the cheirosporous genera and officially introduced Dictyosporiaceae to accommodate cheirosporous hyphomycete genera and designated Dictyosporium as the type genus. Boonmee et al. (2016) also provided the first sexual morph of Dictyosporium as D. meiosporum based on phylogenetic analyses. Dictyosporium is a well-defined and type genus of Dictyosporiaceae but needs to be re-evaluated because numerous species lack molecular data. Molecular markers available for Dictyosporium are LSU, SSU, ITS, RPB2 and TEF1.
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