IMA Fungus 2(2): 135-142, doi: 10.5598/imafungus.2011.02.02.04
A new species of Antherospora supports the systematic placement of its host plant
expand article infoMarcin Piatek‡, Matthias Lutz§, Paul A. Smith, Arthur O. Chater|
‡ W.Szafer Institute of Botany, Krakow, Poland§ University of Tübingen, Plant Evolutionary Ecology, Institute of Evolution and Ecology, Tübingen, Germany| Windover, Penyrangor, Aberystwyth
© Marcin Piatek, Matthias Lutz, Paul Smith, Arthur Chater.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes, provided that the article is not altered or modified and the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Piatek M, Lutz M, Smith PA, Chater AO (2011) A new species of Antherospora supports the systematic placement of its host plant. IMA Fungus 2(2): 135-142. https://doi.org/10.5598/imafungus.2011.02.02.04
Open Access
Abstract
The morphology and phylogeny of anther smut specimens on Tractema verna collected in the United Kingdom were investigated using light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and partial rDNA sequence analyses. The anther smut of Tractema verna shows similarity to Antherospora eucomis, A. scillae, A. tourneuxii, A. urgineae, A. vaillantii, and A. vindobonensis but differs in spore size range, spore wall thickness, host plant genera and considerable divergences of ITS and LSU sequences. Consequently, the smut is described here as a new species, Antherospora tractemae. The host plant was formerly included in the genus Scilla (S. verna), but recently moved to a distinct genus Tractema. Molecular phylogenetic analyses reveal that Antherospora tractemae is sister to the lineage of Muscari-parasitizing Antherospora and only distantly related to the Scilla-parasitizing Antherospora species. Thus, the phylogenetic placement of the smut fungus supports the systematic placement of its host plant.
Keywords
Molecular Analysis, Phylogeny, Plant Pathogens, Scilla verna, Smut Fungi, Tractema verna, Coevolution, Ustilaginomycotina