Neopestalotiopsis cavernicola sp. nov. from Gem Cave in Yunnan Province, China
Liu Xf, Saowaluck Tibpromma, Fan Zhang, Jianchu Xu, K. W. Thilini Chethana, Samantha C. Karunarathna, Peter E. Mortimer
Abstract
In this paper we describe a new species of cave fungus belonging to Sporocadaceae (Amphisphaeriales), collected from Gem Cave, Fumin County, Yunnan Province, China. Initial morphological observations confirmed that our fungal collection is a pestalotioid species. Phylogenetic analyses of combined internal transcribed spacer (ITS), β-tubulin (TUB) and translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF1α) gene sequence dataset confirmed that our fungus forms an independent branch within Neopestalotiopsis. Thus, we describe our fungus as a new species of Neopestalotiopsis based on both morphology and multigene phylogeny. This is the first-ever report of Neopestalotiopsis from a cave habitat. A full description, micrographs and a phylogenetic tree showing the placement of the new species are provided.