Hola Zotto

Te adjunto los artículos, espero te sirvan.

Saludos

Many thanks indeed, Pablo!

So the type of  Phialocephala is lignicolous.

Zotto

Dear Zotto,  In Genera of Hyphomycetes you will find the teleomorph connection with Phaeomollisia according to Grüünig et al. The connection to the similar genus Sporendocladia as differentiated by Wingfield et al. is not yet sufficiently clear to me.  Best regards  Walter

Dear Walter

yes, Phaeomollisia piceae formed a Phialocephaha sp. in culture. But the phialides are arranged in only small heads or not at all, not a very typical Phialocephala as Kendrick had described.

The type species P. dimorphospora clustered not very far from Phaeomollisia, though in a clade of its own, together with Mollisia spp. The question for me is now, how wide to take the generic concept of Mollisia. In a wide sense, Phialocephala would be a synonym of Mollisia when applying the new rules. With a narrow concept, one would conclude that Phialocephala is the correct name for Phaeomollisia, and this is what Amy Rossman actually did in the new paper of Johnston et al. 2014 in IMAfungus, though she did not mention at all the genus Mollisia.

Phialocephala is genetically highly heterogenous, and Sporendocladia seems to be a genus of Microascales that was used to replace Phialocephala concerning some of the taxa unrelated to the type species. The second species described by Kendrick in 1961 (Ph. bactrospora) is already such an unrelated member, although the morphology is strikingly similar to the type species (except for the Chalara-like conidia formed in chains in the P. bactrospora).


Zotto

Hi Zotto,

If you check my thesis, you'll see my views on your question there, my provisional delineation of the genus Mollisia and its relationship to Phialocephala s.s. I'm working it into a paper so I won't post it here, but it's taking a while. I've emailed you the relevant phylogram to save you looking for it.

Did you get the Mollisia hydrophila/Phialocephala dimorphospora idea from Grunig et al. (2009)? There is no evidence that I know of (from all the sequences in GenBank, of which there are many) suggesting members of the P. dimorphospora/P. lagerbergii/P. repens clade could be on grasses, either as fruitbodies, endophytes or saprotrophs. It is remotely possible, but I don't think it is at all likely; all members of this clade seem lignicolous saprophytes and endophytes. At least two resemble Mollisia cinerea/benesuada and are very common in Wales, UK.

Grunig et al. (2009) did not release any description, images, sequence or collection data for this species, so I'm inclined to treat it as a misidentification or mistake. They also featured another M. hydrophila from Phragmites, but this falls into roughly where I would expect it (a clade with lots of grass-associated species), so I would treat this as being more reliable.

On the topic of Phaeomollisia: I think Johnston et al. (2014) only protected Phialocephala against Phaeomollisia because they didn't want the closely related Phialocephala spp. to be transferred to Phaeomollisia due to misapplication of nomenclatural rules (e.g. preferring a more recent monotypic teleomorph genus over an established genus/clade concept). They did not assert the correct name for Phaemollisia is Phialocephala, or make any taxonomic judgement on it. Personally, I think Phaeomollisia piceae is better treated as a Mollisia with melanised ascospores, and the simple phialides are not atypical for members of the Phialocephala dimorphospora/etc group - they're probably just young.

Cheers,

Brian

Thanks Brian for your estimation. I asked Thomas Sieber about the sequences and docus but so far wait for an answer.

I also assume that their M. hydrophila near Ph. dimorphospora was lignicolous. In any case it is an interesting result. But first one should clarify whether their Ph. dimorphospora ITS sequence matches the others in GenBank, despite any of those being of non-type origin.

I understand the suggestion done by Amy to protect Phialocephala, but I think the combination she did was superfluous or premature as she disregarded Mollisia. A big concept of Mollisia including Vibrissea would be an option, but the general trend is to split all groups of fungi in smaller genera, so I think there is little gained when making an even bigger genus than it is presently. One should weight all morphological detailes including anamorphs for whether there are groups worth to be recognized as gerena.

Presently we are actually thinking of splitting Orbilia into several genera. But we always allow paraphyletic groups, and this is what I like to suggest you: Even if  Vibrissea is found in one of the Mollisia s.l. clades then you must not merge it with Mollisia. You can keep it separate based on morphological reasons. For instance, I do not know any Mollisia that shows an amyloid perihymenial excipulum, or a nasse apicale in the ascus apex. Mollisia will then be something like the reptils and Vibrissea representing the birds or mammals.

Zotto

Hi Zotto,

Yes, I also think protecting Phialocephala against Phaeomollisia was unnecessary.  A better choice might have been to protect Phialocephala against Cystodendron.  Some Mollisias have Cystodendron-like states and the type species could plausible be within this lineage, and Cystodendron is an older genus  (1914 vs 1961). But Mollisia is older (1871) so this isn't a big nomenclatural problem at the moment.

The Phialocephala dimorphospora strain in Grunig et al. (2009) is the one usually used to represent this species (CBS 300.62). It was collected by Bryce Kendrick in 1961 from paper pulp slime in New Brunswick, Canada.

I don't think Mollisia can be split into smaller genera in any meaningful way, whether by ecology, anamorphs, or morphology at the field mycology level.  Cladistically it may be possible, but I can't see that being useful to anyone, especially field mycologists.  I think it will always be a clade of predominantly Mollisia teleomorphs plus a few sub-clades of highly divergent teleomorph genera.

Unlike Orbilia, most research involving Mollisia is not teleomorph/anamorph-centric, but involves unnamed isolates or environmental sequencing, and so a slightly larger cladistic conception of Mollisia would be very beneficial to researchers investigating molecular fungal ecology, endophytes, saprophytes and mycorrhizas. 

The monophyly vs. paraphyly debate is always controversial, and the "best" solution depends on what sort of end-user of the taxonomy one is.  Both approaches are often used.  But really we need more sequencing of Mollisia, Vibrissea and other taxa before any firm decisions are made! If Vibrissea is too polyphyletic in and out of the Mollisia clade then that would weaken the case for its preservation at the genus level.

From an anamorph perspective, Vibrissea s.s. does have a well defined and typical (if very well developed) Phialocephala state, and so any delimitation of Mollisia on these grounds would also include it.

Cheers,

Brian

I yesterday looked at the paper on the two anamorphs of Vibrissea, Anavirga and Phialocephala, as reported by Descals & Sutton 1976. The Phialocephala looks to me quite exactly as the type of the genus, but those others known from Mollisia s.l. form much smaller heads and shorter stipes, which is, of course, a gradual difference. But the Anavirga state sound special, isn't it?

You are right with the genetic heterogeneity of Vibrisseaceae  which is surpsizing, since morphologically the included genera are very similar. I wonder in this respect about the genetic position of Pocillum, a genus that I would not hesitate to place in that family. No sequences of it are known to me.

Zotto

Hi Zotto,

Yes, the Vibrisseaceae is polyphyletic, but heterogeneity in Vibrissea is still unknown. Vibrissea albofusca is very close to Chlorovibrissea, but V. truncorum (the type), V. flavovirens, V. filispora, and at least one other species (one of my isolates) do form a single subclade within the Mollisia/ Vibrissea/ Loramyces clade.  So it could be that many/most Vibrissea do belong with the type, and there are only a few species that need reassigning - or the opposite could be true.

The formation of heads and stipes in phialidic anamorphs in the Mollisia lineage is very variable, and I can't see any clear pattern in particular clades. Morphologies range dramatically from typical to long broom-like phialide clusters (P. scopiformis), to clusters without stipes (P. urceolata), to Sporodochium-like conidiophores, to simple phialides. They can even vary to some degree at the isolate/species/complex level - see Grunig et al. 2008 (http://www.mycologia.org/content/100/1/47.short).  Some species may lack phialides (e.g. Acephala applanata).
 
As for Anavirga: simple aquatic anamorphic states are so polyphyletic that they become meaningless as good genera (e.g. Tricladium, Tetracladium, etc), although they may be useful characters at the species level. If they are just formed from simple modified/branching/detaching hyphae then I think they can evolve quite rapidly in many Helotialean lineages if exposed to sufficient evolutionary pressure. There's no evidence that Anavirga is any different, but it is possible!  A few other Mollisia species have Variocladium or Casaresia aquatic anamorphs, but again these may be one-offs.

I've got no idea about Pocillum, but it would be nice to sequence at some point and find out.

Cheers,

Brian

There a correlation with the hemispheres: Chlorovibrissea and V. albofusca are S-hemispheric, and - who knows - perhaps congeneric. I must correct that I do not know the micromorphology of these very well, only from the existing descriptions.

Also for Obtectodiscus a sequence is lacking, it is probably related to Loramyces.

Zotto