Fig 1. "Spores of the white fungus with a bristle on both ends" Berkeley notates on his sketch of the Type specimen (MEL1054843) pictured above. (Photo courtesy of Pina Milne)

Thozetella is an anamorphic genus belonging to the Chaetosphaeriaceae originally described by Berkeley (1881) from fungal fruitings found on dead bark and sticks in tropical Australia. Their condidiomata are characterized with distinctive microawns and curved unbranched setulae on each end of their conidia. These fungi are widespread in tropical and temperate regions globally and are most often associated with leaf litter and dead plant matter (Jeewon et al., 2009). However, some species of Thozetella have been isolated from roots of living plants (Waipara et al., 1996) and the hyphae of these fungal endophytes can penetrate epidermal and cortical root tissue of seedlings without causing visible disease symptoms. The isolate sequenced here was isolated as a root endophyte of Populus, an important bioenergy crop. This species is being studied by the DOE Plant-Microbial Interfaces project aimed at understanding the molecular interactions between Populus and its symbionts.

Citations

• Berkeley MJ. 1881. Australian fungi i - II. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 18: 383-389.
• Jeewon R, Yeung SYQ, Hyde KD. 2009. A novel phylogenetic group within Thozetella (Chaetosphaeriaceae): a new taxon based on morphology and DNA sequence analyses. Canadian Journal of Microbiology 55(6): 680-687.
• Waipara NW, DiMenna ME, Cole ALJ, Skipp RA. 1996. Characterisation of Thozetella tocklaiensis isolated from the roots of three grass species in Waikato pastures, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 34(4): 517-522.