The current state of Thyronectria study in Ukraine: correction of data from the herbaria and the literature

Abstract

Fungicolous fungi are a large and heterogeneous group, the entire life cycle of which, or at least a significant part of it, takes place in association with other fungi. The nature of the interaction between the fungicolous fungus and their host is not always clear, but quite often it is parasitism, which is quite specialized. Compared to other trophic groups of fungi, fungicolous organisms still have been poorly studied. Often even widely distributed and well-known fungi, like Tremella spp., which for a long time were considered as xylosaprotrophic or phytopathogenic, appeared to be fungicolous after the careful research. The representatives of the genus Thyronectria, which may serve as an example of such a fungi, are considered in this article. Many important features of the biology of the species, assigned to this genus, still remain unknown. Our work is based on critical analysis and summarizing of literature data, as well as on the revision of the collections from the mycological collections of KW (M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv) and CWU (V.N. Karazin National University of Kharkiv). For now, 6 representatives of the genus have been reliably recorded in Ukraine. The species with the largest number of finds are Thyronectria berolinensis (17 records), T. caraganae (7 records), T. cucurbitula (7 records) and T. coryli (6 records). Thyronectria lamyi and T. rhodochlora are represented by a smaller number of finds (by 3 records each). It should be noted, that the species Thyronectria caraganae Voglmayr, Akulov & Jaklitsch was described from the territory of Ukraine and remains known only from this country. T. chlorinella was excluded from a checklist as doubtful find, T. megalospora – as a misidentified collection. Information about some of the findings is published here for the first time. For some species of the genus, the host fungus is also given for the first time