| Thirteen morphologically similar strains of barbatosphaeria- and tectonidula-like fungi were studied based on the comparison of cultural and morphological features of sexual and asexual morphs and phylogenetic analyses of five nuclear loci, i.e. internal transcribed spacer rDNA operon (ITS), large and small subunit nuclear ribosomal DNA, β-tubulin, and second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II. Phylogenetic results were supported by in-depth comparative analyses of common core secondary structure of ITS1 and ITS2 in all strains and the identification of non-conserved, co-evolving nucleotides that maintain base pairing in the RNA transcript. Barbatosphaeria is defined as a well-supported monophyletic clade comprising several lineages and is placed in the... |
