RESEARCH ARTICLE Phylogenetic Reconstruction of the Calosphaeriales and Togniniales Using Five Genes and Predicted RNA Secondary Structures of ITS, and Flabellascus

The Calosphaeriales is revisited with new collection data, living cultures, morphological studies of ascoma centrum, secondary structures of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA and phylogeny based on novel DNA sequences of five nuclear ribosomal and protein-coding loci. Morphological features, molecular evidence and information from predicted RNA secondary structures of ITS converged upon robust phylogenies of the Calosphaer-iales and Togniniales. The current concept of the Calosphaeriales includes the Calosphaer-iaceae and Pleurostomataceae encompassing five monophyletic genera, Calosphaeria, Flabellascus gen. nov., Jattaea, Pleurostoma and Togniniella, strongly supported by Bayes-ian and Maximum Likelihood methods. The structural elements of ITS1 form characteristic patterns that are phylogenetically conserved, corroborate observations based on morphol-ogy and have a high predictive value at the generic level. Three major clades containing 44 species of Phaeoacremonium were recovered in the closely related Togniniales based on ITS, actin and β-tubulin sequences. They are newly characterized by sexual and RNA struc-tural characters and ecology. This approach is a first step towards understanding of the molecular systematics of Phaeoacremonium and possibly its new classification. In th