Fungalpedia – Note 495, Torpedosporaceae 

 

Torpedosporaceae E.B.G. Jones & K.L. Pang

Citation when using this data: Tibpromma et al. 2024 (in prep.) – Fungalpedia, Extreme-tolerant fungi.

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank, Fig. 1 

Classification: Torpedosporaceae, Torpedosporales, Hypocreomycetidae, Sordariomycetes, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi.

Torpedosporaceae was introduced by Jones et al. (2014) to accommodate Torpedospora as the type genus. Torpedosporaceae species are saprobic in intertidal wood, mangrove wood, roots, bark, and leaves in marine habitats. They are distributed worldwide in both temperate and tropical regions (for example, Bahamas, Denmark, India, Italy, Ivory coast, Japan, Liberia, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, UK, USA) (Jones et al. 2014). The sexual morph has perithecial, hyaline, immersed or superficial, subglobose, ostiolate ascomata with paraphyses, unitunicate, thin-walled, clavate to ellipsoidal, short pedicellate asci, fasciculate, hyaline, cylindrical to ellipsoidal, 3–5-septate ascospores with several radiating appendages at one or both ends. The asexual morph is hyphomycetous and has holoblastic, irregularly helicoid, muriform, and yellow-to-brown conidia (Jones et al. 2014, Maharachchikumbura et al. 2016). Initially, this family was placed in Hypocreomycetidae, the order incertae sedis (Jones et al. 2014, Maharachchikumbura et al. 2015), and subsequently transferred to Torpedosporales by Jones et al. (2016). Currently, only the genus type is accepted by this family (Wijayawardene et al. 2020). Nuclear SSU and LSU rDNA molecular markers have been used to elucidate the phylogenetic position of this family (Jones et al. 2014, Maharachchikumbura et al. 2015).

Type genus: Torpedospora Meyers

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Torpedosporaceae

 

Figure 1 – Morphology of Torpedospora. a Perithecia with long ostiolate. b Ascus. c Ascospore. Redrawn from Meyers (1957).

 

References

Jones EBG, Suetrong S, Cheng WH, Rungjindamai N et al. 2014 – An additional fungal lineage in the Hypocreomycetidae (Falcocladium species) and the taxonomic revaluation of Chaetosphaeria chaetosa and Swampomyces species, based on morphology, ecology and phylogeny. Cryptogamie Mycologie 35, 119–138.

Meyers SP. 1957 – Taxonomy of marine Pyrenomycetes. Mycologia 49(4), 475–528.

Maharachchikumbura SSN, Hyde KD, Jones EBG, McKenzie EHC et al. 2015 – Towards a natural classification and backbone tree for Sordariomycetes. Fungal Diversity 72, 199–301.

Maharachchikumbura SSN, Hyde KD, Jones EBG, McKenzie EHC et al. 2016b – Families of Sordariomycetes. Fungal Diversity 79, 1–317.

Wijayawardene NN, Hyde KD, Al-Ani LKT, Tedersoo L et al. 2020 − Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa. Mycosphere 11, 1060–1456.

 

Entry by 

Tennakoon DS, Bioengineering and Technological Research Centre for Edible and Medicinal Fungi, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China.

 

(Edited by Saowaluck Tibpromma, Samaneh Chaharmiri-Dokhaharani, & Achala R. Rathnayaka)

 

Published online 3 December 2024

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