Lecanosticta acicola causes the disease known as brown spot needle blight (BSNB), on Pinus species. The pathogen is
thought to have a Central American centre of origin. This was based on the morphological variation between isolates
believed to represent L. acicola from native Pinus spp. Two species of Lecanosticta, L. brevispora and L. guatemalensis,
have recently been described from Mexico and Guatemala respectively based on morphology and sequence-derived
phylogenetic inference. However, the putative native pathogen, L. acicola, was not found in those areas. In this study,
the species diversity of a large collection of Lecanosticta isolates from Central America was considered. Phylogenetic
analyses of the BT1, ITS, MS204, RPB2 and TEF1 gene regions revealed six species of Lecanosticta, four of
which represented undescribed taxa. These are described here as Lecanosticta jani sp. nov. from Guatemala
and Nicaragua, L. pharomachri sp. nov. from Guatemala and Honduras, L. tecunumanii sp. nov. from Guatemala
and L. variabilis sp. nov. from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. New host and country records were also
found for the previously described L. brevispora and L. guatemalensis. Lecanosticta acicola was not found in
any of the samples from Central America, and we hypothesize that it could be a northern hemisphere taxon.
The high species diversity of Lecanosticta found in Mesoamerica suggests that this is a centre of diversity for
the genus.Figure S1. Maximum likelihood tree representing the
five known and four novel species of Lecanosticta generated from the ITS
region. MP bootstrap support (> 70%) are indicated first, followed by ML
bootstrap values (MP/ML, * = insignificant value). Bold branches indicate
BI values > than 0.95. Dothistroma species were used as the outgroup
taxa. All represented type species are indicated in bold and with a “T”.
Clades indicated on the left correspond with the clades in Fig. 1. Within
the L. jani clade a “Δ” next to the isolate indicates that the isolate exhibits
Type 2 morphology but it groups with Subclade 1 or exhibits Type 1
morphology but groups with Subclade 2.Figure S2. Maximum likelihood tree representing the
five known and four novel species of Lecanosticta generated from the BT1
region. MP bootstrap support (> 70%) are indicated first, followed by ML
bootstrap values (MP/ML, * = insignificant value). Bold branches indicate BI
values > than 0.95. Dothistroma species were used as the outgroup taxa. All
represented type species are indicated in bold and with a “T”. Clades
indicated on the left correspond with the clades in Fig. 1.Figure S3. Maximum likelihood tree representing the
five known and four novel species of Lecanosticta generated from the
MS204 region. MP bootstrap support (> 70%) are indicated first, followed
by ML bootstrap values (MP/ML, * = insignificant value). Bold branches
indicate BI values > than 0.95. Dothistroma septosporum was used as the
outgroup taxa. All represented type species are indicated in bold and with a
“T”. Clades indicated on the left correspond with the clades in Fig. 1. Within
the L. jani clade a “Δ” next to the isolate indicates that the isolate
exhibits Type 2 morphology but it groups with Subclade 1 or exhibits Type 1
morphology but groups with Subclade 2.Figure S4. Maximum likelihood tree representing the
five known and four novel species of Lecanosticta generated from the
RPB2 region. MP bootstrap support (> 70%) are indicated first, followed
by ML bootstrap values (MP/ML, * = insignificant value). Bold branches
indicate BI values > than 0.95. Dothistroma species were used as the
outgroup taxa. All represented type species are indicated in bold and
with a “T”. Clades indicated on the left correspond with the clades in
Fig. 1. Within the L. jani clade a “Δ” next to the isolate indicates that
the isolate exhibits Type 2 morphology but it groups with Subclade 1 or
exhibits Type 1 morphology but groups with Subclade 2.The National Research Foundation of South
Africa (Thuthuka Grant no 80670, and Grant no 95875) as well as by
members of the Tree Protection Cooperative Program (TPCP). AvdN was
supported by a Scarce Skills Doctoral Scholarship (no 89086) provided by the
National Research Foundation of South Africa.http://www.imafungus.orgam2020BiochemistryForestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI)GeneticsMicrobiology and Plant Patholog
