Teratosphaeriaceae is a family of

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

in the order

Capnodiales Capnodiales is a diverse order of Dothideomycetes, initially based on the family Capnodiaceae, also known as sooty mold fungi. Sooty molds grow as epiphytes, forming masses of black cells on plant leaves and are often associated with the honeyd ...

History

In 2007, this family was recognized as distinct from the genus ''

Mycosphaerella ''Mycosphaerella'' is a genus of ascomycota. With more than 10,000 species, it is the largest genus of plant pathogen fungi. The following introduction about the fungal genus ''Mycosphaerella'' is copied (with permission) from the dissertation ...

'', where it had previously been located, based on phylogenies constructed with the Large Subunit (LSU) of ribosomal DNA. In general, many fungi in the

Mycosphaerellaceae The Mycosphaerellaceae are a family of sac fungi. They affect many common plants, such as eucalyptus, the myrtle family, and the Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphe ...

and Teratosphaeriaceae are thought to be widespread, yet there is still little known about their individual distributions or the range of hosts that they inhabit. After the family was formally split out from ''

'' in 2007, many new species have been described in this family including a number of causal agents in leaf diseases and stem cankers of

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Habitat

This family of fungi is notable in that it contains a number of extremeotolerant, so-called

black yeast “Black yeasts”, sometimes also black fungi, dematiaceous fungi, microcolonial fungi or meristematic fungi is a diverse group of slow-growing microfungi which reproduce mostly asexually (fungi imperfecti). Only few genera reproduce by budding ...

fungi. A number of these

fungi in the Teratosphaeriaceae are considered 'rock-inhabiting', and manage to survive on the often-harsh exposed surfaces of rocks in a range of extreme climates, including in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. While some of the members of this family live in harsh environments, including the newly described genus Acidiella that grows in highly acidic soils (pH < 3) in Europe, other closely related species are found as lichens or on plant surfaces. This family, for example, contains a number of previously recognized leaf spot pathogens and endophytes. Sequences from the plant pathogen ''Teratosphaeria microspora'' were even found in a high-throughput screen of fungal spores in indoor dust.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10693266 Capnodiales Dothideomycetes families