Genus

Neptunella

Species

longirostris

Author

(Cribb & J.W. Cribb) K.L. Pang & E.B.G. Jones

Class

Sordariomycetes, Subclass Hypocreomycetidae

Order

Microascales

Family

Halosphaeriaceae

Synonymy: ≡ Gnomonia longirostris Cribb & J.W. Cribb, Pap. Dept. Bot. (formerly Biol.) Univ. Qd. 3: 101 (1956)

Description

Sexual morph: Ascomata 100-200 μm diam., subglobose to bottle-shaped, hyaline or brown, membranous, immersed or partly immersed, solitary or gregarious, ostiolate. Necks 80-1125 μm long, 13-40 μm diam., periphyses absent. Peridium one stratum, composed of a few layers of elongated cells. Catenophyses absent. Asci 50-80 × 17-21 μm, unitunicate, eight-spored, cylindrical-clavate, ellipsoidal-clavate to subfusiform, irregularly deliquescing, at first thick-walled apically, becoming thin-walled, with an apical pore, short pedicellate. Ascospores 13-20 × 4-8 μm, hyaline, elongate-ellipsoidal to irregularly ellipsoidal, 1-septate, slightly constricted at or near the septum, lacking appendages. Asexual morph: undetermined.

Key references:

Alias SA, Jones EBG. (2009). Marine fungi from mangroves of Malaysia. Institute Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. p. 108.

Cribb AB, Cribb JW. (1956). Marine fungi from Queensland-II. University of Queensland Papers, Department of Botany 3: 97-105.

Jones EBG. (1995). Ultrastructure and taxonomy of the aquatic ascomycetous order Halosphaeriales. Canadian Journal of Botany 73: S790-S801.

Kohlmeyer J. (1984). Tropical marine fungi. P.S.Z.N.I. Marine Ecology 5: 329-378.

Pang KL, Vrijmoed LLP, Kong RYC, Jones EBG. (2003). Lignincola and Nais, polyphyletic genera of the Halosphaeriales (Ascomycota). Mycological Progress 2: 29-36.

Image: Neptunella longirostris. (a) Section of immersed ascoma with a short neck. (b) Onelayered peridium of elongated cells. (c) Asci at different stages of development. (d) Mature, thin-walled ascus with a short stalk. (e, f) Hyaline, bicelled ascospores. Scale bar: a=50 μm; b, c=30 μm; d, e, f=10 μm. Photo reproduced with the permission of the National Taiwan Ocean University.

Type & Location:

Other Specimens:

Substratum:

dead mangrove wood, dead mangrove leaves.

Habitat:

Distribution:

Australia, Bermuda, Brunei, China, England, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Philippines, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Singapore, Society Islands, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, USA.

Pertinent Literature:

Mycol. Progr. 2: 35 (2003)

Comments:

It is another species that was initially described as a Gnomonia from mangrove wood collected in Queensland, Australia by Cribb & Cribb (1956). Clearly, it did not belong in this genus and was transferred to Lignincola by Kohlmeyer (1984). Morphologically it differs from L. laevis in that the ascus has an apical pore and the plasmalemma retracts apically from the ascus wall and the Ascospores has a thin exosporial wall layer (Jones 1995). Subsequently, molecular data indicated that it is not monophyletic with L. laevis and the genus Neptunella was introduced to accommodate it (Pang et al. 2003b). Although widely distributed geographically, it is not a common species (Alias & Jones 2009).

Images

Fig 2