IMA Fungus 8(1): 65-76, doi: 10.5598/imafungus.2017.08.01.05
Pleiocarpon gen. nov. and a new species of Ilyonectria causing basal rot of Strelitzia reginae in Italy
Dalia Aiello‡, Giancarlo Polizzi§, Pedro W. Crous|, Lorenzo Lombard|‡ University of Catania, Catania, Italy§ University of Catania, Dipartimento di Agricoltura, Alimentazione e Ambiente, sezione Patologia Vegetale, Catania, Italy| CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht
© Dalia Aiello, Giancarlo Polizzi, Pedro Crous, Lorenzo Lombard. 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:
Aiello D, Polizzi G, Crous PW, Lombard L (2017) Pleiocarpon gen. nov. and a new species of Ilyonectria causing basal rot of Strelitzia reginae in Italy. IMA Fungus 8(1): 65-76. https://doi.org/10.5598/imafungus.2017.08.01.05 |  |
Abstract
During 2015, a new basal rot disease was observed on potted plants of Strelitziareginae in an ornamental nursery located in eastern Sicily. Isolations from symptomatic parts of these diseased plants consistently yielded cylindrocarpon-like isolates. Multigene analyses of the partial gene regions of 28S large subunit nrDNA, β-tubulin, histone H3, translation elongation factor 1-alpha, internal transcribed spacer region and intervening 5.8S nrRNA gene, and RNA polymerase II second largest subunit genes, supported by morphological characters supported the recognition of a new genus, Pleiocarpon based on P. strelitziae sp. nov., and a new Ilyonectria species, described here as I. strelitziae sp. nov. The pathogenicity of both I. strelitziae and P strelitziae were confirmed on young plants cultivated under controlled conditions in a growth chamber. Both cylindrocarpon-like fungi were pathogenic to S. reginae and reproduced symptoms similar to those observed in the nursery. Of the two species, P strelitziae was more aggressive than I. strelitziae, resulting in the death of all inoculated plants.
Keywords
Nectriaceae, multigene phylogeny, pathogenicity, taxonomy