A New Genus of the Microascaceae (Ascomycota) Family from a Hypersaline Lagoon in Spain and the Delimitation of the Genus Wardomyces .

The Saladas de Sástago-Bujaraloz is an endorheic and arheic complex of lagoons located in the Ebro Basin and protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Due to the semi-arid climate of the region and the high salinity of their waters, these lagoons constitute an extreme environment. We surveyed the biodiversity of salt-tolerant and halophilic fungi residents of the Laguna de Pito, a lagoon belonging to this complex. Therefore, we collected several samples of water, sediments, and soil of the periphery. Throughout the study, we isolated 21 fungal species, including a strain morphologically related to the family Microascaceae . However, this strain did not morphologically match any of genera within this family. After an in-depth morphological characterization and phylogenetic analysis using a concatenated sequence dataset of four phylogenetically informative molecular markers (the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA); the D1-D2 domains of the 28S gene of the nuclear ribosomal RNA (LSU); and a fragment of the translation elongation factor 1-alpha ( EF-1α ) and the β-tubulin ( tub 2) genes), we established the new genus Dactyliodendromyces , with Dactyliodendromyces holomorphus as its species. Additionally, as a result of our taxonomic study, we reclassified the paraphyletic genus Wardomyces into three different genera: Wardomyces sensu stricto , Parawardomyces gen. nov., and Pseudowardomyces gen. nov., with Parawardomyces ovalis (formerly Wardomyces ovalis ) and Pseudowardomyces humicola (formerly Wardomyces humicola ) as the type species of their respective genera. Furthermore, we propose new combinations, including Parawardomyces giganteus (formerly Wardomyces giganteus ) and Pseudowardomyces pulvinatus (formerly Wardomyces pulvinatus ).