Two new brown rot polypores from tropical China

Brown-rot fungi are types of fungi that selectively degrade cellulose and hemicellulose from wood and are perhaps the most important agents involved in the degradation of wood products and dead wood in forest ecosystem. Two new brown-rot species, collected from southern China, are nested within the clades of Fomitopsis sensu stricto and Oligoporus sensu stricto, respectively. Their positions are strongly supported in the Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic tree of the concatenated the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions, the large subunit of nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nLSU), the small subunit of nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nuSSU), the small subunit of mitochondrial rRNA gene (mtSSU), the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB1), the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB2) and the translation elongation factor 1-alpha gene (TEF1) sequences. Fomitopsis bambusae, only found on bamboo, is characterised by its resupinate to effused-reflexed or pileate basidiocarps, small pores (6-9 per mm), the absence of cystidia, short cylindrical to oblong-ellipsoid basidiospores measuring 4.2-6.1 x 2-2.3 rm. Oligoporus podocarpi is characterised by white to pale cream pore surface, round or sometimes angular pores (5-6 per mm), broadly ellipsoid to reniform basidiospores measuring 3.8-4.2 x 2-2.3 rm and growing on Podocarpus. Illustrated descriptions of these two novel species, Fomitopsis bambusae and Oligoporus podocarpi, are provided.

Automated summary

Brown-rot fungi selectively degrade cellulose and hemicellulose from wood. Two new brown-rot species from southern China are nested within Fomitopsis and Oligoporus clades and are strongly supported in the phylogenetic tree. The species Fomitopsis bambusae and Oligoporus podocarpi have distinct characteristics and are illustrated in the study.