Morphological and Phylogenetic Analyses Reveal Four New Species of Acrodictys (Acrodictyaceae) in China

During our ongoing survey of dematiaceous hyphomycetes associated with dead branches in tropical forests, eight Acrodictys isolates were collected from Hainan, China. Morphology from the cultures and phylogeny based on partial small subunit (SSU), entire internal transcribed spacer regions with intervening 5.8S (ITS), partial large subunit (LSU) of rRNA gene, partial beta-tubulin (tub2), and partial RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (rpb2) genes were employed to identify these isolates. As a result, four new species, namely Acrodictys bawanglingensis sp. nov., A. diaoluoshanensis sp. nov., A. ellisii sp. nov., and A. pigmentosa sp. nov., are introduced. Illustrations and descriptions of the four taxa are provided, along with comparisons with closely related taxa in the genus. For facilitating relative studies, an updated key to all accepted species of this genus is also compiled.