Important Characters in Identification of Cladosporium spp.

The genus Cladosporium is one of the largest genera of fungi. Its species live in different ways: as plant pathogens, as saprobes in the soil or on decaying plant materials, or as hyperparasitic on other fungi. Morphological characteristics of conidia such as shape, formation and surface ornamentation, the features of conidiophores including shape, ramification and conidiogenous loci, and sequencing data from different regions of DNA are very important for identification of Cladosporium species. In this article the important morphological characteristics and genomic regions which are useful for identification of closely related or cryptic species of this genus, are illustrated.