Genus

Haiyanga

Species

salina

Author

(Meyers) K.L. Pang & E.B.G. Jones

Class

Sordariomycetes, Subclass Hypocreomycetidae

Order

Microascales

Family

Halosphaeriaceae

Synonymy: ≡ Arenariomyces salina Meyers, Mycologia 49: 505 (1957)

Description

Sexual morph: Ascomata 100-425 μm diam., globose or subcylindrical, immersed, partly immersed, or becoming exposed, ostiolate, papillate, membranous or coriaceous, dark brown to black, surrounded by brown hyphae, solitary or gregarious. Necks 68-165 μm long, 28-52 μm diam., cylindrical or conical, ostiolar canal in the upper part filled with a thin-walled pseudoparenchyma, in the lower part with thick-walled, hyaline cells. Peridium 8-12 μm thick, composed of three to five layers of thick-walled, elongated cells with large lumina, merging into the pseudoparenchyma of the venter. Pseudoparenchyma thin-walled, large, polygonal to ellipsoidal cells, filling venter of young ascoma. Asci 60-80 × 29-41 μm, eight spored, clavate or ellipsoidal, short pedunculate, unitunicate, thin-walled, without apical apparatus, early deliquescing, developing at the base of the ascoma venter. Ascospores 19-28 × 8-13.5 μm, ellipsoidal, 1-septate, not or slightly constricted at the septum, hyaline, appendaged, at each end three or four (rarely five) radiating appendages, developing by fragmentation of the exosporium, appendages 12-19 μm long, 1.5-2.5 μm diam. at the base, subterminal, obclavate, curved, attenuate, semi rigid, indistinctly spoon-shaped at the base, inconspicuously striate by fibre-like elements embedded in the subgelatinous matrix. Asexual morph: Undetermined.

Key references:

Johnson RG, Jones EBG, Moss ST. (1984). Taxonomic studies of the Halosphaeriaceae: Remispora Linder, Marinospora Cavaliere and Carbosphaerella Schmidt. Botanica Marina 27: 557-566.

Kohlmeyer J. (1968). Revisions and descriptions of algicolous marine fungi. Journal of Phytopathology 63: 341-363.

Meyers SP. (1957). Taxonomy of marine Pyrenomycetes. Mycologia 49: 475-528.

Pang KL, Vrijmoed LLP, Jones EBG. (2008). Autecology of Antennospora (Fungi: Ascomycota: Sordariomycetidae: Halosphaeriales) and its phylogeny. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 19: 1-10.

Sakayaroj J, Pang KL, Jones EBG (2011). Multi-gene phylogeny of the Halosphaeriaceae: its ordinal status, relationships between genera and morphological character evolution. Fungal Divers. 46: 87-109. DOI 10.1007/s3225-010-0072-y.

Yusoff M, Read SJ, Jones EBG, Moss ST. (1994). Ultrastructure of Antennospora salina comb. nov. Mycological Research 98: 997-1004.

Image: Haiyanga salina. (a) Section of immersed, subglobose ascoma. (b) Ascoma neck filled with pseudoparenchymatous cells. (c) One-layered peridium of cells of textura angularis. (d) Ascospore with bipolar, subterminal, obclavate, curved, attenuate appendages. Scale bar: a=50 μm; b, c, d=10 μm. Photo reproduced with the permission of the National Taiwan Ocean University.

Type & Location:

Other Specimens:

Substratum:

dead mangrove wood.

Habitat:

Distribution:

Bahamas, Belize, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Republic of Trinidad of Tobago, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, USA.

Pertinent Literature:

The Raffles Bull. Zool. 19: 8 (2008)

Comments:

Initially described by Meyers (1957) as Arenariomyces salina, the identification of this species has been in doubt as is demonstrated by the long synonymy above. The confusion is based on the mode of development of the polar appendages. Kohlmeyer (1968) referred the species to Remispora (Kohlmeyer 1972), but later transferred all Remispora species to Halosphaeria. All these genera possess ascospores with 2-4 polar appendages, but an ultrastructural study by Yusoff et al. (1994) demonstrated that in A. salina, the appendages arise from the mesosporium with the apical portion containing mucilage that is released when mounted in water. In Remispora, appendages arise by fragmentation of an exosporium, while in Arenariomyces, they are outgrowths of the spore wall, each appendage having a bulbous base with a unique substructure (Johnson et al. 1984). Sequence data places Haiyanga salina in the Halosphaeriaceae where it forms a sister group to Arenariomyces trifurcatus with high statistical support (Pang et al. 2008; Sakayaroj et al. 2011). The species has been collected on a wide range of substrata, including intertidal and drift wood, test panels (e.g. pine, beech), fruits of Cocos nucifera and lining of teredinid tubes (shipworm).

Images

Fig 2