Dothideomycetes and Leotiomycetes sterile mycelia isolated from the Italian seagrass Posidonia oceanica based on rDNA data

Marine fungi represent a group of organisms extremely important from an ecological and biotechnological point of view, but often still neglected. In this work, an in-depth analysis on the systematic and the phylogenetic position of 21 sterile mycelia, isolated from Posidonia oceanica, was performed. The molecular (ITS and LSU sequences) analysis showed that several of them are putative new species belonging to three orders in the Ascomycota phylum: Pleosporales, Capnodiales and Helotiales. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood approaches. Seven sterile mycelia belong to the genera firstly reported from marine environments. The bioinformatic analysis allowed to identify five sterile mycelia at species level and nine at genus level. Some of the analyzed sterile mycelia could belong to new lineages of marine fungi.