Families, genera, and species of Botryosphaeriales

Abstract Members of Botryosphaeriales are ecologically diverse, but most commonly associated with leaf spots, fruit and root rots, die-back or cankers of diverse woody hosts. Based on morphology and DNA sequence data, the Botryosphaeriales have to date been shown to contain eight families, with an additional two, Endomelanconiopsisaceae ( Endomelanconiopsis ) and Pseudofusicoccumaceae ( Pseudofusicoccum ) being newly described in this study. Furthermore, Oblongocollomyces is introduced as new genus, while Spencermartinsia is reduced to synonymy under Dothiorella. Novel species include Diplodia pyri ( Pyrus sp., the Netherlands), Diplodia citricarpa ( Citrus sp., Iran), Lasiodiplodia vitis ( Vitis vinifera, Italy), L. sterculiae ( Sterculia oblonga, Germany), Neofusicoccum pistaciarum ( Pistacia vera , USA), N. buxi ( Buxus sempervirens , France), N. stellenboschiana ( Vitis vinifera , South Africa), and Saccharata hawaiiensis ( Protea laurifolia, Hawaii). New combinations are also proposed for Camarosporium pistaciae (associated with fruit rot of Pistacia vera ) in Neofusicoccum , and Sphaeria gallae (associated with galls of Quercus ) in Diplodia . The combination of large subunit of the nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (LSU)- rpb2 proved effective at delineating taxa at family and generic level. Furthermore, rpb2 also added additional resolution for species delimitation, in combination with ITS, tef1 and tub2 . In this study we analysed 499 isolates, and produce an expanded phylogenetic backbone for Botryosphaeriales , which will help to delimit novelties at species, genus and family level in future.