Preliminary classification of Leotiomycetes
Abstract
Leotiomycetes is regarded as the inoperculate class of discomycetes within the phylum Ascomycota. Taxa are mainly characterized by asci with a simple pore blueing in Melzer's reagent, although some taxa have lost this character. The monophyly of this class has been verified in several recent molecular studies. However, circumscription of the orders, families and generic level delimitation are still unsettled. This paper provides a modified backbone tree for the class Leotiomycetes based on phylogenetic analysis of combined ITS, LSU, SSU, TEF, and RPB2 loci. In the phylogenetic analysis, Leotiomycetes separates into 19 clades, which can be recognized as orders and order-level clades. Leotiomycetes include 53 families (Ascodichaenaceae, Amicodiscaceae fam. nov.