Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #339386
Title: Proposals to conserve Botryodiplodia theobromae (Lasiodiplodia theobromae) against Sphaeria glandicola, .....Ramularia brunnea against Sphaerella tussilaginis (Mycosphaerella tussilaginis) (Ascomycota: Dothideomycetes)

Author
item ROSSMAN, AMY - Retired ARS Employee
item ALLEN, WILLIAM - North Carolina State University
item Castlebury, Lisa

Submitted to: Taxon
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/13/2017
Publication Date: 6/23/2017
Citation: Rossman, A.Y., Allen, W.C., Castlebury, L.A. 2017. Proposals to conserve Botryodiplodia theobromae (Lasiodiplodia theobromae) against Sphaeria glandicola, Diplodia gossypina, and Physalospora rhodina (Botryosphaeria rhodina); Phyllosticta yuccae against Leptodothiorella notabilis; and Ramularia brunnea against Sphaerella tussilaginis (Mycosphaerella tussilaginis) (Ascomycota: Dothideomycetes). Taxon. 66(3):747-748. doi: 10.12705/663.17.

Interpretive Summary: Recent changes in the rules by which fungi are named have caused problems in knowing what to call some agriculturally or environmentally important fungi. Numerous papers have been published with recommendations on which name should be used for major groups of plant pathogens but some individual species have been overlooked. In this paper all known information, including DNA sequences, is used to decide the correct names for three fungal species causing diseases of coffee and other tropical plants, Yucca, an ornamental plant and coltsfoot, a medicinal plant. This work is significant because it will allow correct identification of plant pathogenic fungi on several economically important host plants. These results will be used by scientists and plant quarantine officials who need accurate scientific names to communicate about diseases caused by fungi.

Technical Abstract: In the course of updating the scientific names of plant-associated fungi in the U. S. National Fungus Collections Fungal Databases to conform with one scientific name for fungi as required by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN, McNeill & al. in Regnum Vegetable 154. 2012), a number of instances were encountered in which the oldest epithet was not placed in the oldest or preferred genus. Although the scientific names currently in use should be changed to use the oldest epithet, these economically important fungi are in such widespread use that it would be disruptive to change their names. Among these are Botryodiplodia theobromae, Phyllosticta yuccae and Ramularia brunnea, which cause diseases of coffee and other tropical plants, ornamental Yucca plants, and coltsfoot, an edible medicinal plant, respectively. These names or their basionyms are herein proposed for conservation.