Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ Inclusion of Nothomitra in Geoglossomycetes Hustad VP1,2*, Miller AN2, Moingeon J-M3 and Priou J-P4 1 Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 505 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801 Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois, 1816 S. Oak St., Champaign, IL 61820 3 28 Grande Rue, 25520 Goux-les-Usiers, France 4 7 Rue De Picardie, F- 56200 La Gacilly, France 2 Hustad VP, Miller AN, Moingeon J-M, Priou J-P 2011 – Inclusion of Nothomitra in Geoglossomycetes. Mycosphere 2(6), 646-654, Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ Nothomitra is a small genus of earth tongues consisting of three species. Historically placed within the Geoglossaceae sensu lato, the genus is currently considered incertae sedis within the Helotiales. We reviewed the morphology and analyzed the phylogenetic relationships of Nothomitra using a combined dataset of ITS, LSU and Mcm7 DNA sequences representing 22 species. The placement of Nothomitra was strongly supported within the Geoglossomycetes clade, forming part of the ancestral base of the class with Sarcoleotia globosa and Thuemenidium arenarium. The inclusion of Nothomitra within the Geoglossomycetes is confirmed. Key words – Ascomycota – earth tongues – Geoglossaceae – Leotiomycetes – phylogeny Article Information Received 1 December 2011 Accepted 5 December 2011 Published online 29 December 2011 *Corresponding author: Vincent Hustad – e-mail – vhustad@illinois.edu Introduction Earth tongues are among the most widely distributed groups of fungi on earth and have been a subject of mycological inquiry since Persoon first described Geoglossum in the late 18th century. Genera typically referred to as earth tongues include Geoglossum, Trichoglossum, Microglossum, Leotia, and Spathularia. During the last 200 years, numerous genera and species have been included and removed from this group based primarily on morphological data. Recent molecular studies (Pfister and Kimbrough 2001, Wang et al. 2006a and b, Schoch et al. 2009, Ohenoja et al. 2010) have suggested earth tongues are not a monophyletic group and this resulted in the introduction of the class Geoglossomycetes (Schoch et al. 2009), which contains four genera and approximately 50 species. Currently included within the Geoglossomycetes are Geoglossum (22 species), Sarcoleotia (4 species), Thuemenidium (5 species), and 646 Trichoglossum (19 species) (Kirk et al. 2008). However, several genera formerly included within the Geoglossaceae sensu lato are currently considered incertae sedis and the placement of these taxa within the Pezizomycotina is unknown. The monotypic genus Nothomitra was introduced by Maas Geesteranus (1964) to accommodate N. cinnamomea Maas Geest., which was described from specimens collected in Upper Austria during the autumn of 1962. Three species are accepted in the current concept of the genus following the additions of Nothomitra kovalii Raitviir (1971) from Kunashir in the Kuril Islands and Nothomitra sinensis Zhuang and Wang (1997) from China. At present, Nothomitra is only known to occur in Europe and Asia, though extensive distribution data is lacking. All species in Nothomitra are terrestrial with N. cinnamomea reported growing amongst Sphagnum, N. kovalii reported from rocky soil, and N. Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ sinensis reported from mossy soil in coniferous forests. Nothomitra is found across a wide range of altitudes. N. cinnamomea is recorded from the European Alps from 670 to 1100 m elevation, Nothomitra kovalii is found between 400-800 m elevation on Mt. Mendeleyeva in the Kuril Islands, whereas N. sinensis is described from the Qilian Mountains in Northern China at 2850 m elevation. Nothomitra is characterized by the distinct free edge of the hymenium at the junction of the stipe, unlike Microglossum in which the hymenium intergrades with the stipe on the flattened sides (see Fig 1C). Nothomitra is also differentiated from Microglossum in that the fertile head of the ascocarp is not flattened as in Microglossum, and the internal stipe hyphae of Nothomitra are parallel and easily separable versus the interwoven and agglutinated hyphae found in Microglossum. These morphological differences were cited by Maas Geesteranus (1964) as evidence that Nothomitra is not congeneric with Microglossum. However, Moingeon and Moingeon (2004) argued that these characters were not sufficient to support Nothomitra as a separate genus and advocated the placement of N. cinnamomea into Microglossum, thereby rendering the genus Nothomitra a synonym. Since the importance of the morphological differences between Nothomitra and Microglossum are disputed as is the taxonomic placement of Nothomitra, it is necessary to evaluate molecular characters in order to determine the phylogenetic relationships of this genus. As such, the purpose of this study is to include Nothomitra in a modern phylogenetic analysis for the first time to determine its placement within the Pezizomycotina and to provide detailed insight into the systematics of the Geoglossomycetes using a multi-gene phylogeny. Methods Generation of Molecular Data Total genomic DNA was extracted from dried ascomata using a QIAGEN DNeasy Plant Mini Kit (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, California) and gene fragments were PCR amplified and sequenced following the meth-ods outlined in Promputtha and Miller (2010) and Raja et al. (2011). Gene fragments were amplified using the following sets of primers: ITS1 and ITS4 (White et al. 1990) for the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of nrDNA; JS1 (Landvik 1996) and LR6 (Vilgal-ys and Hester 1990) for the partial 28S nuclear ribosomal large subunit (LSU) of nrDNA; 709F and 1348R (Schmitt et al. 2009) for the DNA replication licensing factor MS456 (Mcm7). These genes were chosen because: a) they provide appropriate resolution at various taxonomic levels (i.e. species to class), b) fungal and ascomycete–specific primers have been developed for these genes, c) a large number of available sequences are available from GenBank because previous researchers (e.g. Wang et al. 2006a and b, Schoch et al. 2009, Ohenoja et al. 2010, Hustad and Miller 2011) have used the nuclear ribosomal genes to effectively reconstruct phylogenies within Geoglossomycetes and neighboring groups, d) based on our preliminary data (Raja et al. 2011), Mcm7 shows promise for reconstruction of accurate species-level to class-level phylogenies, and, e) incorporating both ribosomal and protein–coding genes allows for higher certainty in assessing phylogenetic relationships. Sequence Alignment and Phylogenetic Analyses Each generated ITS and LSU sequence fragment was subjected to an individual blast search to verify its identity. Mcm7 sequences were only used from specimens which provided reliable ITS and/or LSU sequences. Sequences were assembled using Sequencher 4.9 (Gene Codes Corp., Ann Arbor, Michigan), optimized by eye and manually corrected when necessary. Alignments of individual genes were created manually by eye in Sequencher 4.9 or using Muscle 3.7 (Edgar 2004) in Seaview 4.2 (Galtier et al. 1996). Individual gene datasets were then analyzed using Gblocks 0.91b (Castresana 2000) to identify and remove ambiguous regions from the alignment. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) (Posada and Buckley 2004) as implemented in jModelTest 0.1.1 (Posada 2008) determined GTR+I+G as the best fit model of evolution for both maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. Maximum likelihood analyses were performed using PhyML 647 Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ (Guindon and Gascuel 2003) under the GTR substitution model with six rate classes and invariable sites optimized. A BioNJ starting tree was constructed and the best of nearest neighbor interchange (NNI) and subtree pruning and regrafting (SPR) tree improvement was implemented. Bootstrap support (Felsenstein 1985) (BS) was determined with 100 bootstrap replicates. Clades with >70% BS were considered significant and highly supported (Hillis and Bull 1993). Bayesian inference employing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm was performed using MrBayes 3.1.2 (Huelsenbeck and Ronquist 2001) as an additional means of assessing branch support. The GTR+I+G model with six rate classes was employed. Four independent chains of MCMC were run for 10 million generations to insure that trees were not trapped in local optima. Clades with Bayesian posterior probability (BPP) >95% were considered significant and highly supported (Alfaro et al. 2003). The individual ITS, LSU, and Mcm7 datasets were examined for potential conflict before concatenation into a single dataset for total evidence analysis (Kluge 1989, Eernisse and Kluge 1993). The individual gene phylogenies were considered incongruent if clades with significant ML bootstrap and Bayesian posterior probability (>70% BS or >95% BPP) were conflicting in the individual tree topologies (Wiens 1998, Alfaro et al. 2003, Lutzoni et al. 2004). As no incongruencies were found among the three individual data sets, they were concatenated using Seaview 4.2 and subjected to phylogenetic analyses as above. Results Morphology Nothomitra cinnamomea Maas Geest., Persoonia 3(1): 92, 1964. = Microglossum cinnamomeum S. Moingeon & J.M. Moingeon, Miscellannea Mycologica 80–81: 31, 2004. Type: Austria, Attergau, Fehra Moos, SW of St. Georgen, 29 September 1969, J.T. Palmer 11391. L 962.271-144. 648 Ascomata scattered to gregarious occurring in soil, 1–3.3 cm high, hymenium borne on variously-shaped fertile heads, head glabrous, spathulate to obovoid or subglobose with concolorous wavy lobes, pale cinnamon to olivaceous, darkening with age, 3–9 mm broad (Fig 1A, B), hymenium distinctly separated from stipe (Fig 1C), stipe straight or flexuous, terete, tapering towards base, ochraceous above becoming paler toward base, squamulose above, becoming glabrous at base, 0.7–2.4 cm high. Hyphae at center of stipe easily separated, often swollen at the septa, thin–walled and often branched. Hyphae near the periphery of the stipe thin-walled and tightly bundled. Paraphyses filiform, upper cells hyaline, with brownish guttules in lower cells, septate, sometimes branched at apex or base, curved at the apex, slightly longer than asci, 1–1.5 m wide, expanding to 2–3 m wide at apex. Asci cylindrical–clavate, with crosiers, inoperculate, apical ring euamyloid, deep blue in IKI, small, not occupying entire apex, 150–180 × 9.5– 12.5m (Fig 1B), 8–spored, biseriate. Ascospores fusiform to narrowly obclavate, rounded at apex, acute at base, hyaline, smooth, multiguttulate, single–celled in ascus, becoming up to 5–septate when mature or old, 35–47 (–55) × 3.5–5.5 (–6) m (Fig 1D). Habitat: Growing among Sphagnum and Aulocomnium palustre (Hedw.) Schwägr., often accompanying Geoglossum sphagnophilum Ehrenb. September–October. Distribution: Known from Austria and France. Anamorph: Unknown. Material examined – France, Jura, Bellefontaine, September 2001, 1100 m, leg. J.M. Moingeon s.n., ILLS Acc. ANM463; ILLS Acc. ANM538; ILLS Acc. ANM540; October 2001, leg. J.M. Moingeon s.n., ILLS Acc. ANM549. Phylogenetic analyses Twenty–two taxa were included in the final analyses (Table 1). Mcm7 data for Microglossum olivaceum and Sarcoleotia globosa were not available. The final data matrix had an aligned length of 2720 base pairs, which was reduced to 2091 after the removal of 629 ambiguous characters by Gblocks. Of the 2091 characters used in the final analyses, 76 were Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ Figs 1 (A-D) – Nothomitra cinnamomea. A In situ photograph of ascomata. B Ascus, total magnification = 400X. C Close up of fertile tip, arrow denotes separation of head and stipe. D Ascospores illustrating variable septation, total magnification = 800X. constant, 819 were parsimony–uninformative, and 1196 were parsimony informative. The maximum likelihood tree produced from the combined ITS, LSU, and Mcm7 dataset is presented in Fig 2. The topology of Geoglossomycetes is congruent with those produced from similar analyses including Geoglossomycetes taxa (Schoch et al. 2009, Ohenoja et al. 2010, Wang et al. 2011). Two major clades are present and strongly supported in our analyses: the Leotiomycetes clade (BP=100%, PP=1.0) and the Geoglossomycetes clade (BP=100%, PP=1.0). Nothomitra cinnamomea was placed within Geoglossomycetes as a sister taxon to Sarcoleotia globosa with moderate support (BS=78%). Geoglossum occurred as a strongly supported monophyletic group (BP=100%, PP=1.0), whereas Trichoglossum was paraphyletic. of Geoglossomycetes, closely aligned with Sarcoleotia globosa as the most basal members of the class. Morphologically, S. globosa is rather similar to N. cinnamomea (Fig 3). Both species possess a distinct capitate hymenium that is clearly separated from the stipe when mature, but the margin of the hymenium is completely free in N. cinnamomea and completely inrolled in S. globosa. Both species also possess hyaline ascospores that develop 3-5 septa upon maturation. Lastly, both species are terrestrial and collection data suggests that an association with mosses exists in both species (Maas Geesteranus 1964, Schumacher and Silvertsen 1987). These morphological and ecological similarities support the close phylogenetic relationship of N. cinnamomea and S. globosa revealed by the molecular phylogeny (Fig 2). Discussion Our analyses confirm Nothomitra cinnamonmea as a strongly supported member Another morphological feature that links N. cinnamomea within Geoglossomycetes is that the hyphae at the axis of the stipe are not 649 Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ Table 1 List of taxa, GenBank and herbarium accession numbers, collections numbers, and locality for specimens used in this study. Name Bisporella citrine Collection Number Herbarium # ILLS61033 VPH s.n. Locality ITS LSU Mcm7 JQ256414 JQ256432 JN672971 JQ256415 JQ256416 JN012006 JQ256433 JN672988 JQ256444 JQ256417 JQ256434 JQ256445 JQ256418 JN673044 JN672990 JQ256419 JQ256435 JQ256446 JQ256420 JQ256436 JQ256447 JQ256421 JQ256437 JQ256448 JQ256422 JQ256438 JQ256449 JQ256423 JQ268558 AY789398 JN198494 JN012009 JN673046 AY789397 AF286411 JN672993 JN672997 N/A XM958785 JQ256424 JQ256439 JQ256450 JQ256425 AY789300 JN012015 AY789299 JQ256451 N/A JQ256426 JQ256440 JQ256452 JQ256427 JQ256441 JQ256453 JQ256428 JQ256442 JQ256454 JQ256429 JQ256443 JQ256455 JQ256430 JN673053 JN673022 JQ256431 JN012017 JN673023 ILLS60488 Cudoniella clavus Geoglossum barlae Geoglossum cookeanum ANM2087 Moingeon s.n. ILLS61034 ILLS61035 ANM2257 ILLS61036 Geoglossum difforme ANM2169 ILLS61037 Geoglossum fallax J. Gaisler s.n. ILLS61038 Geoglossum glabrum ANM2267 ILLS61039 Geoglossum simile ANM2171 ILLS61040 Geoglossum umbratile CFR251108 ILLS60491 Graddonia coracina Hymenoscyphus fructigenus Microglossum olivaceum Neurospora crassa Nothomitra cinnamomea ANM2018 ASM10619 GenBank GenBank ILLS61041 N/A N/A ILLS61042 Moingeon s.n. ILLS60497 Propolis versicolor Sarcoleotia globosa ANM2050 GenBank Thuemenidium arenarium CFR181007 N/A ILLS61043 ILLS61044 Thuemenidium atropurpureum ASM4931 ILLS61045 Trichoglossum hirsutum J. Gaisler s.n. ILLS61046 Trichoglossum octopartitum JPP10191 ILLS61047 Trichoglossum walteri Vibrissia filisporia f. filisporia ANM2203 ILLS60499 ANM2064 agglutinated and easily separable, a character commonly seen in Geoglossomycetes. Maas Geesteranus (1964) cited this character in his original proposal to separate Nothomitra from Microglossum, and this character appears to be one of the few conserved characters throughout the class. As in previous molecular based phylogenies (Wang et al. 2006a and b, Schoch et al. 2009, Ohenoja et al. 2010), Microglossum olivaceum and Thuemenidium atropurpureum were shown to occur in the Leotiomycetes. 650 Champaign County, Illinois GSMNP, Tennessee France GSMNP, North Carolina Cades Cove, GSMNP, Tennessee Hamrstejn, Czech Republic GSMNP, Tennessee GSMNP, Tennessee Kennemerland, Netherlands GSMNP, Tennessee Samara, Russia N/A N/A Bellefontaine, Jura, France GSMNP, North Carolina N/A Kennemerland, Netherlands Cortland County, New York Hamrstejn, Czech Republic Senavelle, France GSMNP, North Carolina GSMNP, North Carolina Both Microglossum and Thuemenidium possess hyaline ascospores but this character is not sufficient to exclude these genera from Geoglossomycetes since several Geoglossum species possess hyaline ascospores. Microglossum can be delineated from Geoglossomycetes based on its ascomata that range from brightly colored to brown. Thuemenidium is a polyphyletic genus composed of at least two disparate species, T. arenarium, which belongs in Geoglosso Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ Fig 2 – Maximum likelihood phylogeny of Geoglossomycetes based on a combined dataset (2091 bp) of ITS, LSU, and Mcm7 DNA sequences representing 22 taxa using PhyML ((-ln)L score = 13700). Thickened branches indicate significant Bayesian posterior probabilities (>95%); numbers refer to PhyML bootstrap support values >70% based on 1000 replicates. Neurospora crassa and the Leotiomycetes were used as outgroup taxa. Fig 3 – Sarcoleotia globosa. Arrow indicates distinct separation of fertile head and stipe. 651 Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ mycetes, and T. atropurpureum, shown by this study and Ohenoja et al. (2010) to belong in Leotiomycetes. Thuemenidium atropurpureum produces ascomata ranging from brown to purplish black, whereas T. arenarium does not possess any purplish coloration. The Geoglossomycetes are an earlydiverging lineage appearing on a long branch within the Ascomycota and further molecular research is needed in the group to construct a comprehensive phylogeny of the class. Several genera have historically been associated within this group which are now considered incertae sedis (e.g. Hemiglossum Pat., Leucoglossum Imai, and Maasoglossum Thind and Sharma), and representatives from these genera need to be examined using molecular phylogenies to fully understand their place within the Pezizomycotina. Moreover, several species complexes are likely present within the group and Australasian lineages appear to have origins entirely separate from Northern Hemisphere counterparts (Wang et al. 2011). Further molecular data are also needed to provide accurate reference sequences for environmental sampling as ongoing efforts in this field may shed some light on the enigmatic host associations within Geoglossomycetes. Acknowledgements This project was funded in part by an American Society of Plant Taxonomists Graduate Student Research Grant to VPH. The authors wish to thank Bohumil Dolensky, Jan Gaisler, Andrew Methven, and Kees Roobeek for kindly providing specimens used in this study. References Alfaro ME, Zoller S, Lutzoni F. 2003 – Bayes or Bootstrap? A simulation study comparing the performance of Bayesian Markov Chain Monte 652 Carlo Sampling and Bootstrapping in assessing phylogenetic confidence. Molecular Biology and Evolution 20, 255–266. Castresana J. 2000 – Selection of conserved blocks from multiple alignments and their use in phylogenetic analysis. Molecular Biology and Evolution 17, 540–552. Edgar R. 2004 – MUSCLE: multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Research 32, 1792– 1797. Eernisse DJ, Kluge AG. 1993 – Taxonomic congruence versus total evidence, and amniote phylogeny inferred from fossils, molecules, and morphology. Molecular Biology and Evolution 10, 1170–1195. Felsenstein J. 1985 – Confidence limits on phylogenies: An approach using the bootstrap. Evolution 39, 783–791. Galtier N, Gouy M, Goutier C. 1996 – SEAVIEW and PHYLO_WIN: two graphic tools for sequence alignment and molecular phylogeny. Computer Applications in the Biosciences 12, 543–48. Guindon S, Gascuel O. 2003 – A simple, fast, and accurate algorithm to estimate large phylogenies by maximum likelihood. Systematic Biology 52, 696–704. Hillis DM, Bull JJ. 1993 – An empirical test of bootstrapping as a method for assessing confidence in phylogenetic analysis. Systematic Biology 42, 182–192. Huelsenbeck JP, Ronquist F. 2001 – MrBayes: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees. Bioinformatics 17, 754– 755. Hustad VP, Miller AN. 2011 – Phylogenetic placement of four genera within the Leotiomycetes (Ascomycota). North Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ American Fungi 6, 1–13. Kirk PM, Cannon, PF, Minter DW, Staples JA. 2008 – Dictionary of the fungi, 10th edition. CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Kluge AG. 1989 – A concern for evidence and a phylogenetic hypothesis of relationships among Epicrates (Boidae, Serpentes). Systematic Biology 38, 7–25. Landvik S. 1996 – Neolecta, a fruit-bodyproducing genus of the basal ascomycetes, as shown by SSU and LSU rDNA sequences. Mycological Research 100, 199–202. Lutzoni F, Kauff F, Cox C, McLaughlin D, Celio G, Dentinger B, Padamsee M, Hibbett D, James T, Baloch E, Grube M, Reeb V, Hofstetter V, Schoch C, Arnold AE, Miadlikowskia J, Spatafora J, Johnson D, Hambleton S, Crockett M, Shoemaker R, Sung G, Lucking R, Lumbsch T, O’Donnell K, Binder M, Diederich P, Ertz D, Gueidan C, Hansen K, Harris R, Hosaka K, Lim Y, Matheny B, Nishida H, Pfister D, Rogers J, Rossman A, Schmitt I, Sipman H, Stone J, Sugiyama J, Yahr R, Vilgalys R. 2004 – Assembling the fungal tree of life: progress classifcation and evolution of subcellular traits. American Journal of Botany 91, 1446–1480. Maas Geesteranus RA. 1964 – On some white-spored Geoglossaceae. Persoonia 3, 81–96. Moingeon S, Moingeon J–M. 2004 – Contributions à l’étude des Geoglossaceae à spores hyalines. Miscellanea Mycologica 80–81, 25–35. Ohenoja E, Wang Z, Townsend JP, Mitchell D, Voitk A. 2010 – Northern species of the earth tongue genus Thumenidium revisited, considering morphology, ecology and molecular phylogeny. Mycologia 102, 1089–1095. Pfister DH, Kimbrough JW. 2000 – Discomycetes. In: The Mycota VII Part A. Systematics and Evolution (eds DJ McLaughlin, EG McLaughlin, PA Lemke). Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 257–281. Posada D, Buckley TR. 2004 – Model selection and model averaging in phylogenetics: advantages of Akaike information criterion and Bayesian approaches over likelihood ratio tests. Systematic Biology 53, 793– 808. Posada D. 2008 – jModelTest: Phylogenetic model averaging. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25, 1253–1256. Promputtha I, Miller AN. 2010 – Three new species of Acanthostigma (Tubeufiaceae, Dothidiomycetes) from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mycologia 102, 574–587. Raitviir A. 1971 – The Geoglossaceae of the Far East. In: Plants and animals of the Far East (ed E Parmasto). Valgus, Tallin 52–83. Raja HA, Schoch CL, Hustad VP, Shearer CA, Miller AN. 2011 – Testing the phylogenetic utility of MCM7 in the Ascomycota. MycoKeys 1, 46–56. Schoch CL, Wang Z, Townsend JP, Spatafora JW. 2009 – Geoglossomycetes cl. nov., Geoglossales ord. nov. and taxa above class rank in the Ascomycota Tree of Life. Persoonia 22, 129–136. Schmitt I, Crespo A, Divakar PK, Fankhauser JD, Herman–Sackett E, Kalb K, Nelson MP, Nelson NA, Rivas–Plata E, Shimp AD, Widhelm T, Lumbsch HT. 2009 – New primers for promising single-copy genes in fungal phylogenetics and systematics. Persoonia 23, 35–40. Schumacher T, Silvertsen S. 1987 – Sarcoloetia globosa (Sommerf.: Fr.) Korf, taxonomy, ecology, and distribution. 653 Mycosphere Doi 10.5943/mycosphere/2/6/5/ In: Arctic and Alpine Mycology 2 (eds GA Larsen, JF Amirati, SA Redhead). Plenum Press, New York and London 163–176. Vilgalys R, Hester M. 1990 – Rapid identification and mapping of enzymaticcally amplified ribosomal DNA from several Cryptococcus species. Journal of Bacteriology 172, 4238–4246. Wang Z, Binder M, Schoch CL, Johnston PR, Spatafora JW, Hibbett DS. 2006a – Evolution of helotialean fungi (Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycotina): A nuclear rDNA phylogeny. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41, 295–312. Wang Z, Johnston PR, Takamatsu S, Spatafora JW, Hibbett DS. 2006b – Toward a phylogenetic classification of the Leotiomycetes based on rDNA data. Mycologia 98, 1065–1075. Wang Z, Nilsson RH, Lopez-Giraldez F, Zhuang W, Dai Y, Johnston PR, Townsend JP. 2011 –Tasting soil fungal diversity with earth tongues: Phylogenetic test of SATé alignments for environmental ITS data. PLos ONE 6, e19039. 654 White TJ, Bruns T, Lee S, Taylor JW. 1990 – Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In: PCR Protocol: a guide to methods and applications (eds MA Innis, DH Gelfand, JJ Sninsky, TJ White). Academic Press, San Diego. 315–322. Wiens JJ. 1998 – Combining data sets with different phylogenetic histories. Systematic Biology 47, 568–581. Zhuang W, Wang Z. 1997 – Some new species and new records of discomycetes in China, 7. Mycotaxon 63, 307–321.