Paraloratospora edkuensis sp. nov. (Ascomycota, Phaeosphaeriaceae) from the brackish Lake Edku, Egypt

In this study, we introduce a novel saprobic taxon Paraloratospora edkuensis, from a decaying stem of Phragmites australis collected at Lake Edku, El-Behera Governorate, Egypt. Multi-locus analyses of the combined ITS (internal transcribed spacers of rDNA), LSU (nuclear large subunit rDNA) and tef1-alpha (translation elongation factor) sequence data placed the new taxon within Paraloratospora as a phylogenetically distinct species in a clade containing two aquatic species P. fructigena and P. marina. The new species is characterized by having globose to subglobose, dark brown to black ascomata with a short neck, 4-8-spored, cylindrical to obclavate asci, and 3-septate, hyaline and fusiform ascospores. Paraloratospora edkuensis differs from P. fructigena and P. marina by having smaller ascomata with a single neck, asci with four or eight ascospores, different mycelial colony morphology, and nucleotide differences of 2.1-3 %, 0.6-1.4 %, and 1.3-6.9 % in the ITS, LSU and tef1-alpha genes, respectively.