The Lentitheciaceae are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

of fungi in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Pleosporales The Pleosporales is the largest order (biology), order in the fungal class Dothideomycetes. By a 2008 estimate, it contained 23 family (biology), families, 332 genera and more than 4700 species. The majority of species are saprobes on decaying pl ...

. They are found world-wide (within China, Egypt, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia, Saudi, Thailand, UK and Uzbekistan,) with the greatest contributions found in Europe and Australia. In a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

study of Lophiostoma and

Massarina ''Massarina'' is a genus of fungi in the Massarinaceae family. Anamorph forms of species in ''Massarina'' include '' Acrocalymma'', '' Ceratophoma'', and '' Tetraploa''. ''Massarina'' was circumscribed by Pier Andrea Saccardo in 1883. The widesp ...

species, Lentithecium was proposed in 2009 based on ''Lophiostoma fluvitale'' now called '' Lentithecium fluviatile'' . Lentitheciaceae is a well supported

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

.E. B. Gareth Jones and Ka-Lai Pang (Editors) Lentitheciaceous taxa are

saprobic Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi ...

(living on dead tissue) on herbaceous and woody plants having narrow peridia, fusiform to broadly cylindrical pseudoparaphyses (sterile, thread-like filaments),

hyaline A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from , and . Histopathology Hyaline cartilage is named after its glassy appearance on fresh gross pathology. On light microscopy of H&E stained slides, the extracellula ...

(glassy appearance)

ascospores In fungi, an ascospore is the sexual spore formed inside an ascus—the sac-like cell that defines the division Ascomycota, the largest and most diverse division of fungi. After two parental nuclei fuse, the ascus undergoes meiosis (halving of ...

with 1–3-transverse septa and containing refractive globules, surrounded by a mucilaginous sheath or extended appendage-like sheaths and asexual morphs producing stagonospora-like or dendrophoma-like asexual morphs. They are found in terrestrial or aquatic habitats.

Taxonomy

Genera accepted by the

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

include: * '' Aquilomyces'' (5) * '' Coenosphaeria'' * ''

Darksidea ''Darksidea'' is a genus of fungi belonging to the ascomycetes, in the order Pleosporales The Pleosporales is the largest order (biology), order in the fungal class Dothideomycetes. By a 2008 estimate, it contained 23 family (biology), familie ...

'' (17) * '' Flavomyces'' (2) * '' Halobyssothecium'' (2) * '' Katumotoa'' (1) * '' Keissleriella'' (54) * '' Lentithecium'' (6) * '' Murilentithecium'' (5) * '' Neoophiosphaerella'' (2) * '' Poaceascoma'' (7) * '' Setoseptoria'' (11) * '' Suttonomyces'' (3) * '' Tingoldiago'' (4) * '' Towyspora'' (1) * '' Zopfinula'' (1) Figures in brackets are approx. how many species per genus.

References

Bibliography

*
Zhang Y, Schoch CL, Fournier J, Crous PW, Gruyter J De, Woudenberg JHC, Hirayama K, Tanaka K, Pointing SB, Hyde KD. 2009. Multi-locus phylogeny of the Pleosporales: a taxonomic, ecological and evolutionary re-evaluation. Studies in Mycology 64: 85–102.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q30034294 Pleosporales Dothideomycetes families Taxa described in 2009