Molecular and Morphological Assessment of Septoria Species Associated with Ornamental Plants in Yunnan Province, China.

The Karst landform is the main geographic characteristic in South China. Such areas arerich in vegetation and especially suitable for growth of shrubs and herbaceous plants. In this study,11Septoriastrains were obtained from different plants’ leaves collected in the Kunming BotanicalGarden, Yunnan Province, China. Based on single-gene and multi-gene analyses of five gene loci(tef1,rpb2,tub2, ITS, andLSU) and four gene regions (withoutLSU), these strains were found tobelong to three independent phylogenetic lineages representing five species, including four noveltaxa, and one new record for China. Five single gene trees were also provided to evaluate theeffectiveness of each gene for discriminating the species, as a result of whichtub2was found to havethe most suitable DNA barcode for rapid identification. Morphological descriptions, illustrations,and comparisons are provided for a more comprehensive assessment. Genealogical ConcordancePhylogenetic Species Recognition (GCPSR) with a pairwise homoplasy index (PHI) test was used toevaluate the conclusions of the phylogenetic analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]