Characterisation of several plant pathogenic species belonging to the family Didymellaceae based on multigene and morphological analyses in East and West Azarbaijan provinces

Didymellaceae is a species-rich family including saprophytic, endophytic, and pathogenic species that are associated with different types of substrates. Some species of this family, such as Phoma sensu lato, are among the most important and widespread plant pathogens. Despite the economic significance of species belonging to this family in Iran, no coherent study has been conducted on their biodiversity. Many of presently known Didymellaceae members in Iran have been identified based on herbarium materials and in most of the cases there is no living culture available for molecular studies. The aim of present study was to explore species diversity of the family Didymellaceae in East and West Azarbaijan provinces. After isolation and establishing single spore cultures from different substrates, the isolates were identified based on morphological and molecular data using sequence data of ITS-rDNA, LSU-rDNA, and beta-tubulin gene. In this study Epicoccum nigrum, Boeremia exigua, Boeremia strasseri, Didymella glomerata, Didymella tanaceti, Ascochyta medicaginicola, Ascochyta herbicola, Phoma eupyrena and Heterophoma novae-verbascicola were identified from different host plants, soil and also as mycoparasites. Boeremia strasseri, D. tanaceti, P. eupyrena and H. novae-verbascicola are new records for the mycobiota of Iran. Furthermore, for each species new hosts/substrates are reported. Our results confirm that the sole reliance on morphological features for the identifaction of these fungi, is insufficient both at species and genus level.