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Marin-Felix, Yasmina; Miller, Andrew N. 2022: Corrections to recent changes in the taxonomy of the Sordariales. Mycological Progress 21(69): 1-15.

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Marin-Felix, Yasmina; Miller, Andrew N. 2022: Corrections to recent changes in the taxonomy of the Sordariales. Mycological Progress 21(69): 1-15.
10.1007/s11557-022-01814-z
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the family Bombardiaceae was introduced by Huang et al. (2021), even though the ML bootstrap support was only 76% and there was no Bayesian inference support for this clade. Huang et al. (2021) explained that Marin-Felixet al. (2020) discussed the low support of this lineage, and for that reason no family was introduced to accommodate it. Nonetheless, they considered this lineage to be well- supported in their phylogenetic study, and therefore the new family Bombardiaceae was introduced to represent it. In our phylogenetic study (Fig. 2), which included the same se- quences that Huang et al. (2021) used, the clade representing this family is not supported (42% bs/0.89 pp), so we do not accept the Bombardiaceae as a justifiable family
Lasiosphaeriaceae has been considered a polyphyletic family [2,11]. Kruys et al. [26] previously separated the family into four groups (I, II, III, and IV) according to the clades obtained in their phylogenetic analysis based on LSU and tub2. Recently, the new family Podosporaceae was introduced to accommodate taxa included in their monophyletic group IV [6], which is phylogenetically distant from the monophyletic clade including the type genus of Lasiosphaeriaceae, Lasiosphaeria, together with other taxa including the type species of Zopfiella, Z. tabulata. In the present work, the family Lasiosphaeriaceae s. str. is reduced to the taxa included in this latter monophyletic clade, and the families Naviculisporaceae and Schizotheciaceae are introduced to accommodate lasiosphaeriaceous genera included in two other well-supported lineages. Lasiosphaeriaceae s. str. includes taxa with mostly ostiolate ascomata covered with a tomentum or hyphae-liked hairs below the neck. Naviculisporaceae is characterized by producing mostly ostiolate ascomata with membranaceous and pseudoparenchymatous ascomatal walls. Schizotheciaceae includes taxa that produce ostiolate ascomata with walls mostly pseudoparenchymatous, membranaceous, and semi-transparent, and frequently adorned with different kinds of ornamentation on the neck, or sometimes on the entire ascomata. Even though the ascomatal morphology is similar among members of the Naviculisporaceae, they show a large variability in ascospore morphology, including both one-celled and two-celled ascospores. Arnium caballinum, A. japonense, and A. mendax produce one-celled ascospores [9,39], while all other species produce two-celled ascospores. The presence of taxa with both kinds of ascospores is also observed in Lasiosphaeriaceae and Schizotheciaceae. In Naviculisporaceae, the ascomata are frequently ostiolate, except for Z. marina, Z. pilifera, and Z. submersa, which are non-ostiolate [40–42]. In our phylogenetic study, these three species were located in a well-supported clade together with T. mangenotii, which produces ostiolate ascomata [43], suggesting that these could represent a new genus; further phenotypic and molecular studies are necessary to demonstrate this assumption. Regarding the nature of the ascomatal wall in members of Naviculisporaceae, the membranaceous type is the most common. However, the new genus Areotheca, located in this family, is characterized by a carbonaceous areolate cephalothecoid ascomatal wall.
Recent molecular studies have demonstrated that the traditional circumscriptions of most of the genera included in the Lasiosphaeriaceae are artificial, as the ascospores morphology is an extremely homoplastic character not useful in predicting phylogenetic relationships [10,11]. Moreover, the morphology of the ascospores is not always useful as a taxonomic criterion to separate genera as was reported in the Sordariales, e.g., the genus Gelasinospora was synonymized with Neurospora despite the different patterns of ascospore ornamentation [51,52]. On the other hand, Miller and Huhndorf [11] demonstrated that in the Sordariales, the structure of the ascomatal wall is clearly more useful for delimitation of some genera. An example is Schizothecium, which was delimited for those species producing ostiolate ascomata with swollen agglutinated hairs or prominent protruding ascomatal wall cells [33]. Unfortunately, the type of ascomatal wall varies in taxa in the same phylogenetic clade [11], indicating that this character is not always useful for genera delimitation. Moreover, a large number of lasiosphaeriaceous fungi possess relatively simple ascomatal walls without discriminative characters [26].
The families Lasiosphaeridaceae and Zygospermellaceae, erected for only one and two genera, respectively, are also points of contention since they were proposed based on limited taxon sampling and poor taxonomic practices. In the recent phylogenetic studies from Kruys et al. (2015) and Marin-Felix et al. (2020), both clades now considered inde- pendent families by Huang et al. (2021) were clustering to- gether in a well-supported clade. Huang et al. (2021) prema- turely introduced both families since they formed two inde- pendent lineages in their phylogenetic study. However, both families are included in the Schizotheciaceae clade in our Bayesian phylogenetic study (0.97 pp) (Fig. 2). More taxa and sequences should be incorporated in further phylogenetic analyses to verify if the Lasiosphaeridaceae and Zygospermellaceae are two independent lineages or belong to the Schizotheciaceae. For these reasons, we reject these families until more data can be analysed and we refer to both lineages as Lasiosphaeriaceae s. lato.
As mentioned above, the genus Strattonia is delimited based on the non-type species S. oblecythiformis, which should not be accepted due to the difficulty of delimiting gen- era in the Sordariales based on only morphological data (for further details, see section “New families superfluously intro- duced or without sufficient evidence”). For this reason, the new combination S. petrogale should not be taken up until further studies that include the type species confirm the correct taxonomic placement of the lineage representing Strattonia.
The families Lasiosphaeridaceae and Zygospermellaceae, erected for only one and two genera, respectively, are also points of contention since they were proposed based on limited taxon sampling and poor taxonomic practices. In the recent phylogenetic studies from Kruys et al. (2015) and Marin-Felix et al. (2020), both clades now considered inde- pendent families by Huang et al. (2021) were clustering to- gether in a well-supported clade. Huang et al. (2021) prema- turely introduced both families since they formed two inde- pendent lineages in their phylogenetic study. However, both families are included in the Schizotheciaceae clade in our Bayesian phylogenetic study (0.97 pp) (Fig. 2). More taxa and sequences should be incorporated in further phylogenetic analyses to verify if the Lasiosphaeridaceae and Zygospermellaceae are two independent lineages or belong to the Schizotheciaceae. For these reasons, we reject these families until more data can be analysed and we refer to both lineages as Lasiosphaeriaceae s. lato.

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12 August 2022
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