Fungal Sporulation and Characterization

Agar plugs (6 mm diam) were taken from the edge of actively growing cultures on PDA and transferred onto the centre of 9 cm diam Petri dishes containing 2% tap water agar supplemented with sterile pine needles (PNA) (Smith et al. 1996 (link)) and potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated at 25 °C under a 12 h near-ultraviolet light/12 h dark cycle to induce sporulation as described in recent studies (Gomes et al. 2013 (link); Lombard et al. 2014 (link)). Colony characters and pigment production on PNA and PDA were noted in the 10-day culture. Colony features were rated according to the color charts of Rayner (1970) . Cultures were examined periodically for the development of conidiomata. The microscopic examination was based on the morphological features of conidiomata obtained from the fungal growth mounted in clear lactic acid. At least 30 conidiomata and conidia were measured to calculate the mean size/length. Micro-morphological observations were done at ×1000 magnification using a Leica compound microscope (DM 2500) with interference contrast (DIC) optics. Descriptions, nomenclature, and illustrations of taxonomic novelties were deposited at MycoBank (www.MycoBank.org) (Crous et al. 2004 ).