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Title: A MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR PERSEPCTIVE OF TRICHODERMA VIRIDE: IS IT ONE OR TWO SPECIES?

Author
item LIECKFELDT, ELKE - HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY
item Samuels, Gary
item NIRENBERG, HELGARD - GERMANY
item PETRINI, ORLANDO - SWITZERLAND

Submitted to: Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/19/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The development of management strategies to control fungal diseases through the use of biological control agents as well as the search for more effective industrial enzymes are hindered by lack of knowledge about species in the genus Trichoderma and its sexual state, Hypocrea. The type species of the genus Trichoderma, T. viride, has been confused. This paper rpresents morphological and molecular evidence that two different species have been called T. viride. One of the species corresponds to the asexual state of Hypocrea rufa. The other is an undescribed species. These results will be useful to agricultural scientists who need to accurately identify these fungi as well as to scientists working on the development of novel agents for the biological control of disease-causing fungi.

Technical Abstract: Strains of Trichoderma (Ascomycetes, Hypocreales) that have warted conidia are traditionally identified as T. viride, the type species of Trichoderma. However, two morphologically distinct types of conidial warts (I and II)have been found. Because each type corresponds to a unique mtDNA pattern it has been questioned whether T. viride comprises more than one species. Combined molecular data (sequences of the ITS-1 and ITS-2 region and of part of the 28S rRNA gene along with RFLP analysis of the endochitinase gene and PCR fingerprinting), morphology, physiology and colony characters distinguish type I from type II as different species. Type I corresponds to "true" T. viride, the anamorph of Hypocrea rufa. Type II represents a new species that is with respect to molecular characters close to the neotype of T. hamatum.