Drawing of Zopfiella by Rabenhorst L & Grunow A. [Image Source: Dr. L. Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich und der Schweiz (1884) page 46. Biodiversity heritage library https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/1356]

CSP 2019 Proposal "Comparative genomics and association mapping in Sordariales: insights into functional diversity in Neurospora and its relatives" aims to investigate the genomic bases of fungal thermophily and thermotolerance, biomass-degradation, and fungal-bacterial interactions. Sequencing multiple populations and species of Sordariales will enable comparative analysis across an order of biomass-degrading fungi frequently encountered in soil, compost and herbivore dung, and encompassing one of the few groups of thermophilic fungi.

Zopfiella pleuropora IMI 148365

Fungal strain IMI 141365 of Zopfiella pleuropora was isolated from a dusky-footed woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes) dung, near the Crystal Springs Reservoir, in the South of San Francisco, California. Zopfiella macrospora is homothallic and belongs to Sordariales. The genus is named after German mycologist Friedrich Zopf. The species name describes the position of the germ pore of the ascospores (in Greek, “pleura”= side, “poros”= pore). The species was originally described in 1971 by Malloch and Cain [1].

Reference

1. Malloch, D., & Cain, R. F. (1971). New cleistothecial Sordariaceae and a new family, Coniochaetaceae. Canadian Journal of Botany, 49(6), 869-880.