New host associations and a novel species for the gall-inducing acacia rust genus Ravenelia in South Africa

Trees in the genus Vachellia (previously Acacia) are commonly infected by the gall-inducing rusts Ravenelia macowaniana and R. evansii. Rust galls bearing aecial infections and relating uredinial and telial infections on the leaves of nine Vachellia species not previously recorded to be infected by Ravenelia spp. have recently been collected in South Africa. The rust fungi causing these infections were characterised using molecular phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence data of the LSU and ITS rDNA regions as well as morphological examinations. The host range of R. macowaniana and R. evansii was thus re-assessed and extended from four to nine species and from one to three species, respectively. Application of Principal Component Analyses (PCA) of telial morphological characters provided evidence of an effect of the host species on the teliospore morphology in R. evansii, but only minor effects in R. macowaniana. A novel gall-inducing Ravenelia sp. closely related to R. macowaniana, was found on Vachellia xanthophloea and it is described here as R. xanthophloeae.Supplementary material 1. Figure S1. Authors: Malte Ebinghaus, Wolfgang Maier, Michael J. Wingfield, Dominik Begerow Data type: statistical data. Explanation note: Boxplot of measurements of the six defined teliospore characters of R. evansii. Values were obtained from teliospores derived from seven different host species of in total 18 individual trees. The boxplots are based on mean values calculated for all investigated teliospores for each specimen, respectively. Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited. Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.43.25090.supplSupplementary material 2. Figure S2. Authors: Malte Ebinghaus, Wolfgang Maier, Michael J. Wingfield, Dominik Begerow Data type: statistical data. Explanation note: Boxplot of measurements of the six defined teliospore characteristics of R. macowaniana and R. xanthophloeae. Values were obtained from teliospores derived from three different host species of in total 10 individual trees. The boxplots are based on mean values calculated for all investigated teliospores for each specimen, respectively. Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited. Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.43.25090.suppl2Supplementary material 3. Table S1. Authors: Malte Ebinghaus, Wolfgang Maier, Michael J. Wingfield, Dominik Begerow Data type: species data. Explanation note: List of measurements of teliospore characters of R. evansii. Obtained values were sorted by voucher and by individual teliospores. All measurements are given in μm. Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited. Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.43.25090.suppl3Supplementary material 4. Table S2. Authors: Malte Ebinghaus, Wolfgang Maier, Michael J. Wingfield, Dominik Begerow Data type: species data. Explanation note: List of measurements of teliospore characters of R. macowaniana and R. xanthophloeae. Obtained values were sorted by voucher and by individual teliospores. All measurements are given in μm. Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited. Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.43.25090.suppl4The DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the Studienstiftung für mykologische Systematik und Ökologie and the DFG Open Access Publication Funds of the Ruhr University Bochum.https://mycokeys.pensoft.netForestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI