Cycasicola coffeae L. Lu & Tibpromma, 2025

Lu, Li, Karunarathna, Samantha C., Rajeshkumar, Kunhiraman C., Elgorban, Abdallah M., Jayawardena, Ruvishika S., Hongsanan, Sinang, Suwannarach, Nakarin, Kumla, Jaturong, Xiong, Yin-Ru, Hyde, Kevin D., Han, Mei-Yan, Zheng, De-Ge, Li, Qiang, Dai, Dong-Qin & Tibpromma, Saowaluck, 2025, Unveiling fungal diversity associated with coffee trees in China using a polyphasic approach and a global review of coffee saprobic fungi, IMA Fungus 16, pp. e 144874-e 144874 : e144874-

Cycasicola coffeae L. Lu & Tibpromma sp. nov.

Fig. 20

Etymology.

The species epithet “ coffeae ” refers to the host plant genus “ Coffea ” from which the fungus was isolated.

Diagnosis.

Differs from Cy. goaensis by the ellipsoid and larger conidia.

Holotype.

HKAS 137613 .

Description.

Saprobic on decaying branch of C. arabica . Teleomorph: Not observed. Anamorph: Coelomycetous. Conidiomata 100–180 µm high × 120–200 µm diam. (x- = 132 × 160 µm, n = 20), pycnidial, solitary, gregarious or confluent, immersed, unilocular, globose to subglobose or irregular, brown, with central ostiolar. Conidiomatal wall 15–20 µm wide (x- = 17.5 µm, n = 30), composed of 2–3 brown cells in the outer layers and two hyaline cells in the inner layer, with textura angularis cells. Conidiophores inconspicuous or micronematous, often reduced to conidiogenous cells. Conidiogenous cells 4–6 × 3–5 µm (x- = 5 × 4 µm, n = 30), phialidic, hyaline, cylindrical to ampulliform, smooth-walled. Conidia 4–7 × 2–3 µm (x- = 5.5 × 2.7 µm, n = 30), hyaline to brownish-orange, ellipsoid to cylindrical or some ovoid, continuous, straight or slightly curved, obtuse at apex and base, aseptate, guttulate, smooth-walled.

Culture characteristics.

Conidia germinating on PDA within 24 h, colonies reached 3.5 cm in diameter after one month at 25 ° C, circular, radially striated, with a filiform edge, flat, smooth, colonies from above brown at the centre, hyaline to grey at the middle, dark green at the edge, from below, dark green to black.

Materials examined.

China, Yunnan Province, Dali , on a decaying branch of Coffea arabica ( Rubiaceae ) (26°09'N, 101°91'E, 1415 m alt.), 25 July 2022, LiLu, DL-C 4 ( HKAS 137613 , holotype), isotype MHZU 23-0065 , ex-type living culture KUNCC 24-18357 = KUNCC 24-18358 , ex-isotype living culture ZHKUCC 23-0640 = ZHKUCC 23-0641 .

Notes.

In the concatenated phylogenetic analysis, Cycasicola coffeae forms a distinct allied basal lineage with Cy. goaensis and Cy. leucaenae (Fig. 21 ). Based on morphology, the conidia of our fungus are very similar to those of Cy. goaensis (type species). However, the conidia of Cy. coffeae (4–7 × 2–3 µm) are larger than Cy. goaensis (3.5–5 × 2.2–2.6 µm) (Fig. 20 , Wanasinghe et al. (2018)). Based on nucleotide comparisons, Cy. coffeae ( ZHKUCC 23-0640 ) is different from Cy. goaensis ( MFLUCC 17-0754 ) by 31 / 485 bp (6.5 %, without gaps) of the ITS, 4 / 850 bp (0.5 %, without gaps) of the LSU, 2 / 1036 bp (0.2 %, without gaps) of the SSU and 25 / 925 bp (2.7 %, without gaps) of the TEF 1 - α. In addition, the PHI test results (Fig. 22 j ) revealed no significant recombination relationships between Cy. coffeae and its phylogenetically related taxa. Therefore, the morphological differences and phylogenetic analyses support the introduction of Cy. coffeae as a new species.

Figures

Figure 20. Cycasicola coffeae (HKAS 137613, holotype). A, B conidiomata on a decaying branch of C. arabica; C, D longitudinal section of conidiomata; E conidioma wall and conidiogenous cells; F conidia; G germinated conidium; H culture on PDA from the obverse and reverse. Scale bars: 50 μm (C, D); 10 μm (E – G).

Figure 21. Phylogram generated from the best scoring RAxML tree, based on a combined ITS LSU, SSU and TEF 1 - α sequence dataset. Occultibambusa bambusae D. Q. Dai & K. D. Hyde, (MFLUCC 13-0855 and MFLUCC 11-0394) are selected as the outgroup taxa. Bootstrap support values for ML equal to or greater than 70 % and PP equal to or greater than 0.90 are given above the nodes. All type strains are in bold and newly-generated sequences are in red.

Figure 22. Split graphs showing the results of the pairwise homoplasy index (PHI) test of the new taxa and closely-related taxa using LogDet transformation and splits decomposition. a Leucaenicola coffeae; b Montagnula coffeae; c Xenodidymella coffeae; d Flabellascoma coffeae; e Longiostiolum coffeae; f Helminthosporium puerensis; g Neomassaria coffeae; h Neooccultibambusa coffeae; i Pararoussoella coffeae; j Cycasicola coffeae. PHI test result P-value (Φw) ≤ 0.05 indicates that there is significant recombination between the isolates included in the alignment. The new taxa are in red, “ T ” indicate the type species and each PHI test value and scale bars are given in the bottom right corner.