Chitrabhanu S. Bhunjun

Mae Fah Luang University | MFU · Center of Excellence in Fungal Research

The cosmopolitan plant genus Clematis contains many climbing species that can be found worldwide. The genus occurs in the wild and is grown commercially for horticulture. Microfungi on Clematis were collected from Belgium, China, Italy, Thailand and the UK. They are characterized by morphology and analyses of gene sequence data using an integrated...

A novel genus, Anastomitrabeculia, is introduced herein for a distinct species, Anastomitrabeculia didymospora, collected as a saprobe on dead bamboo culms from a freshwater stream in Thailand. Anastomitrabeculia is distinct in its trabeculate pseudoparaphyses and ascospores with longitudinally striate wall ornamentation. A new family, Anastomitrab...

Bipolaris species are important plant pathogens with a worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate environments. Species recognition in Bipolaris has been problematic due to a lack of molecular data from ex-type cultures, the use of few gene regions for species resolution and overlapping morphological characters. In this study, we evaluate the...

Colletotrichum is one of the most important plant pathogenic genera that is responsible for numerous diseases which can have a profound impact on the agricultural sector. Species delineation is difficult due to a lack of distinctive phenotypic variation. Therefore, in this study three different genomic approaches based on phylogenetic, evolutionary...

Fungi play vital roles in ecosystems as endophytes, pathogens and saprobes. The current estimate of fungal diversity is highly uncertain, ranging from 1.5 to 12 million, but only around 150,000 species have been named and classified to date. Since the introduction of DNA based methods for species identification, the number of newly described taxa h...

Diatrypaceae members have a broad distribution and are commonly found on decaying wood. Despite taxonomic and morphological challenges within this group, there has been a growing interest in Diatrypaceae in recent years. The dead branches of several plant hosts with fungal fruiting bodies were collected from Doi Tung National Park, Chiang Rai, and...

Studying the taxonomy, diversity and host preference of leaf litter inhabiting microfungi contributes towards elucidating hidden taxa, their host affinities and recovering novel life modes dwelling inside forest ecosystems. Leaf litter-inhabiting microfungi also play a crucial role in forest ecosystems through decomposition and nutrient recycling....

Shearia belongs to the Longiostiolaceae (Pleosporales, Dothideomycetes) and is typified by S. formosa. Previously, Shearia species were reported by their asexual morph, and here we introduce the first sexual morph for Shearia. We also provide the sexual-asexual linkage of S. formosa with two new host records from Magnolia sprengeri and Michelia alb...

Fungi are essential to forest functioning and biodiversity. This research elaborates on the study of the morphology and phylogeny of Peroneutypa species in Thailand. We introduce Peroneutypa nayariophyti as a novel saprobic species from the dead wood of Nayariophyton zizyphifolium (Malvaceae) and a new record of P. scoparia with three new host asso...

Diaporthe is a large and taxonomically complex genus, with over a thousand epithets listed in Index Fungorum. The placement of many Diaporthe species remains confusing, and there is a lack of consensus on their taxonomy and phylogeny. In this study, we provide annotated notes on accepted or presumed species of Diaporthe up to 2023. Our notes cover...

A new species, Stephanonectria ellipsoidea, was isolated from decaying fruit in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China. It is characterized by pale orange colonies, densely clustered, irregularly branched conidiophores, cylindrical phialides, and hyaline, ellipsoidal conidia. Its morphology fits well with the generic concept of Stephanonectria. This...

Leaf litter is an essential functional aspect of forest ecosystems, acting as a source of organic matter, a protective layer in forest soils, and a nurturing habitat for micro-and macro-organisms. Through their successional occurrence, litter-inhabiting microfungi play a key role in litter decomposition and nutrient recycling. Despite their importa...

Research into freshwater fungi has generated a wealth of information over the past decades with various published articles, i.e., reviews, books, and monographs. With the advancement of methodologies used in freshwater fungal research, and numerous mycologists working on this ecological group, our knowledge progress and understanding of freshwater...

Fungi are an essential component of any ecosystem and have diverse ecological roles, ranging from endophytes to epiphytes and pathogens to saprobes. The current estimate of fungal endophytes is around 1 million species, however, we estimate that there is likely over 3 million species and only about 150,000 fungal species have been named and classif...

This article is the 14th in the Fungal Diversity Notes series, wherein we report 98 taxa distributed in two phyla, seven classes, 26 orders and 50 families which are described and illustrated. Taxa in this study were collected from Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Cyprus, Egypt, France, French Guiana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Laos, Me...

Paramyrothecium was introduced in 2016 containing 20 species and many species have been reported as plant pathogens, causing leaf blight and leaf spots on different plant species. This study revealed a new species Paramyrothecium amorphophalli from symptomatic leaves of elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus sp.), collected from Chiang Rai, Thailand bas...

Molecular barcoding and morphological characters were used to identify a new saprotrophic species in Pestalotiopsis, which was associated with senescent leaves of Eleutherococcus brachypus (Araliaceae) in Jilin Province, China. The matrix of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, translation elongation factor 1-alpha (tef1-α), and β-tubulin...

Fungi are an understudied resource possessing huge potential for developing products that can greatly improve human well-being. In the current paper, we highlight some important discoveries and developments in applied mycology and interdisciplinary Life Science research. These examples concern recently introduced drugs for the treatment of infectio...

Diaporthe species have a worldwide distribution and are associated with economically important hosts as pathogens, endophytes, and saprobes. Taxonomic identification of Diaporthe species is challenging due to overlapping morphological traits and host associations. Herein, we have assembled a comprehensive dataset and inferred a phylogenetic tree of...

Cucurbitariaceae has a high biodiversity worldwide on various hosts and is distributed in tropical and temperate regions. Woody litters collected in Changchun, Jilin Province, China, revealed a distinct collection of fungi in the family Cucurbitariaceae based on morphological and molecular data. Phylogenetic analyses of the concatenated matrix of t...

Plant pathogenic fungi and fungus-like taxa (oomycetes) form part of the ecological makeup of healthy natural forest ecosystems. Some help to eliminate unhealthy trees, while others are essential for the conservation of plant species diversity, particularly soil-borne pathogens. However, many fungal pathogens also have devastating effects on forest...

Seven Fusarium species complexes are treated, namely F. aywerte species complex (FASC) (two species), F. buharicum species complex (FBSC) (five species), F. burgessii species complex (FBURSC) (three species), F. camptoceras species complex (FCAMSC) (three species), F. chlamydosporum species complex (FCSC) (eight species), F. citricola species compl...

The global diversity of fungi has been estimated using several different approaches. There is somewhere between 2–11 million estimated species, but the number of formally described taxa is around 150,000, a tiny fraction of the total. In this paper, we examine 12 ascomycete genera as case studies to establish trends in fungal species descriptions,...

Leptosphaeriaceae, a diverse family in the order Pleosporales, is remarkable for its scleroplectenchymatous or plectenchymatous peridium cells. Four Leptosphaeriaceae species were discovered and studied during the investigation of saprobic fungi from plant substrates in China. Novel taxa were defined using multiloci phylogenetic analyses and are su...

Over the years, there have been continuous updates in the taxonomy of coelomycetes. In particular, traditional classification has been revised and updated based on extensive collections supplemented with morphological examinations and phylogenetic analyses. Most of the data available are scattered in the literature. In an attempt to ease the work o...

Fungi are an essential component of any ecosystem, but they can also cause mild and severe plant diseases. Plant diseases are caused by a wide array of fungal groups that affect a diverse range of hosts with different tissue specificities. Fungi were previously named based only on morphology and, in many cases, host association, which has led to su...

Scientific names are crucial for communicating knowledge concerning fungi and fungus-like organisms. In plant pathology, they link information regarding biology, host range, distribution and potential risk to agriculture and food security. In the past, delimitation among pathogenic taxa was primarily based on morphological characteristics. Due to d...

This is the opening paper in the special issue of Fungal Diversity, which collates the data on defining species. Defining and recognizing species has long been a controversial issue. Since Darwin's proposed origin of species, over 30 species criteria have been brought forth and used to define species boundaries. In recent times, phylogenetic analys...

Colletotrichum is an important plant pathogenic genus that has undergone tremendous taxonomic changes. Species of Colletotrichum also occur as endophytes, saprobes and rarely entomopathogens. The current understanding of Colletotrichum taxonomy and application of various techniques in defining species within the genus is discussed in this paper. He...

Sexual reproduction in fungi results in the production of highly complex structures that contain specialized sexual tissues called ascomata. Ascomata formation is a complex process which requires the expression of specific genes and metabolic pathways that can be affected by environmental factors. Filamentous ascomycetes serve as an important model...

Numerous new taxa and classifications of Dothideomycetes have been published following the last monograph of families of Dothideomycetes in 2013. A recent publication by Honsanan et al. in 2020 expanded information of families in Dothideomycetidae and Pleosporomycetidae with modern classifications. In this paper, we provide a refined updated docume...

Traditionally, fungal taxonomy was based on observable phenotypic characters. Recent advances have driven taxonomic conclusions towards DNA-based approaches and these techniques have corresponding pros and cons. Species concepts must therefore rely on incorporated approaches of genotypic, phenotypic and physiological characters and chemotaxonomy. E...

Dissanayake AJ, Bhunjun CS, Maharachchikumbura SSN, Liu JK 2020-Applied aspects of methods to infer phylogenetic relationships amongst fungi. Abstract There is a need to document the methodologies used for molecular phylogenetic analyses since the current fungal identification, classification and phylogeny are necessarily applied with DNA molecular...

A cercosporoid fungus associated with leaf lesions of Dypsis lutenscens (Arecaceae) was observed in Chiang Rai, Thailand. This study describes the new species Pseudocercospora dypsidis based on morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses from three gene regions, ITS, TEF-1α, and ACT. Single gene analyses are generally insufficient for i...

This is a continuation of a series focused on providing a stable platform for the taxonomy of phytopathogenic fungi and fungus-like organisms. This paper focuses on one family: Erysiphaceae and 24 phytopathogenic genera: Armillaria, Barriopsis, Cercospora, Cladosporium, Clinoconidium, Colletotrichum, Cylindrocladiella, Dothidotthia,, Fomitopsis, Ga...

The class Dothideomycetes is the largest and most ecologically diverse class of fungi, comprising endophytes, epiphytes, saprobes, human and plant pathogens, lichens, and lichenicolous, nematode trapping and rock-inhabiting taxa. Members of this class are mainly characterized by bitunicate asci with fissitunicate dehiscence, and occur on broad rang...

The recent realistic estimate of fungal numbers which used various algorithms was between 2.2 and 3.8 million. There are nearly 100,000 accepted species of Fungi and fungus-like taxa, which is between 2.6 and 4.5% of the estimated species. Several forums such as Botanica Marina series, Fungal Diversity notes, Fungal Biodiversity Profiles, Fungal Sy...

There is a need to document the methodologies used for molecular phylogenetic analyses since the current fungal identification, classification and phylogeny are necessarily applied with DNA molecular sequence data. Hence this manuscript is mainly aimed to provide a basic reference or guideline for the mycologists venturing into the field of phyloge...

Simplicillium species have a wide host range and an extensive distribution. Some species are associated with rusts, as well as other plant pathogenic fungi and play an important role in biological control. In this study, two specimens of Simplicillium were collected from Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. Simplicillium formicae sp. nov. was isolated fr...

A new species, Colletotrichum artocarpicola, on Artocarpus heterophyllus from Chiang Rai, Thailand, is introduced using both morphological and molecular approaches. Combined phylogenetic analysis of ITS, GAPDH, CHS-1, ACT and TUB2 sequence data demonstrate that Colletotrichum artocarpicola is a distinct species within the gloeosporioides species co...

This is a continuation of a series focused on providing a stable platform for the taxonomy of phytopathogenic fungi and organisms. This paper focuses on 25 phytopathogenic genera: Alternaria, Capnodium, Chaetothyrina, Cytospora, Cyphellophora, Cyttaria, Dactylonectria, Diplodia, Dothiorella, Entoleuca, Eutiarosporella, Fusarium, Ilyonectria, Lasiod...