Two new orders of fungi

This week I had a manuscript published in which two entirely new orders of fungi were established! They are Sarrameanales and Trapeliales, and they both belong to the subclass Ostropomycetidae in the class Lecanoromycetes (the main class of lichen-forming fungi). To read more about the taxonomy of these two orders, see the publication in the December 2011 issue of Phytologia. This research can partly be seen as a taxonomic extension of the NSF-funded Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life project, since the distinctness of these orders was only recognized as a result of multi-gene phylogenetic analyses conducted as part of this effort.

We are making progress taxonomically, but even the higher-level work is not done yet; there are still many groups of 'incertae sedis' fungi out there and probably many more legitimate orders to be described... which means that there's plenty more exciting work to be done in the future!

- Brendan

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Reference

Hodkinson, B. P., and J. C. Lendemer. 2011. The orders of Ostropomycetidae (Lecanoromycetes, Ascomycota): Recognition of Sarrameanales and Trapeliales with a request to retain Pertusariales over Agyriales. Phytologia 93(3): 407-412.
Download publication (PDF file)