Abstract
Twelve species of Hypomyces/Cladobotryum producing red pigments
are reported growing in various tropical areas of the world. Ten of these are
described as new, including teleomorphs for two previously known anamorphic
species. In two species the teleomorph has been found in nature and in three
others it was obtained in culture; only anamorphs are known for the rest. None
of the studied tropical collections belongs to the common temperate species
H. rosellus and H. odoratus to which the tropical
teleomorphic collections had previously been assigned. Instead, taxa
encountered in the tropics are genetically and morphologically distinct from
the nine species of Hypomyces/Cladobotryum producing red pigments
known from temperate regions. Besides observed host preferences, anamorphs of
several species can spread fast on soft ephemeral agaricoid basidiomata but
the slower developing teleomorphs are mostly found on polyporoid basidiomata
or bark. While a majority of previous records from the tropics involve
collections from Central America, this paper also reports the diversity of
these fungi in the Paleotropics. Africa appears to hold a variety of taxa as
five of the new species include material collected in scattered localities of
this mostly unexplored continent. In examining distribution patterns, most of
the taxa do not appear to be pantropical. Some species are known only from the
Western Hemisphere, while others have a geographic range from southeastern
Asia to Africa or Australia. The use of various morphological characters of
anamorphs and teleomorphs as well as culture characteristics in species
delimitation is evaluated. For detecting genetic segregation, partial
sequences of the two largest subunits of the ribosomal polymerase perform the
best in terms of providing informative sites and the number of well-supported
groups recognised in the phylogenies. These are followed by the sequence data
of the translation-elongation factor 1-alpha, while the ribosomal DNA ITS
regions are of only limited use in distinguishing species and their
phylogenetic relationships.
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