Mycological Research News features what Phytophthora infestans race caused the Irish Potato famine?

Molecular work in this issue compares Glomus isolates from mycorrhizal roots and soil in the same field and reveals some discrepancies and probably novel taxa. New mt SSU rDNA primers hae been designed for use in filamentous ascomycetes and applied to Botryosphaeria and related anamorphs. β-tublin gene seqeuences are used in a phylogenetic study of species of Calonectria and associated Cylindrocladium anamorphs.

Microsatellite DNA analysis is used to examine variation in several fungi: a single clonal lineage of Phytophthora cinnamomi from different trees shows asexually derived morphological and pathological variation; Coniothyrium minitans proves to be rather invariable at the molecular level; five microsatellite loci in Dothiostroma pini generated with an anchored PCR technique enable most isolates to be differentiated; and in Beauveria brongniartii, ten microsatellite markers have been identified with the potential for monitoring biocontrol.

An analysis of substrate preferences amongst aquatic hyphomycetes indicates that some substrates support relatively specialized assemblages of species. The establishment of arbuscular mycorrhizas in the saltmarsh plant Puccinellia nuttalliana is shown to be limited by edaphic factors and not the presence of a suitable host. Further studies on the occurrence of three fungi on pine needles along a climatic gradient in France are reported. β-carotene has been found to inhibit sclerotium differentiation in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and epifluorescence microscopy has been used to study the galls formed by Biatoropsis usnearum.

Taxonomic papers included present six further Biscogniauxia's from Taiwan (with a key to the world species), assess the positions of Poronia pileiformis and Xylaria cranioides based on cultures of the anamorphs, report on new species of Inocybe in Spain, revise Entoloma species with cuboid spores in Madagascar (with a key to 13 taxa), and survey the species of Tulasnella in the Patagonian Andes.

The following new scientific names are introduced: Biscogniauxia ambiens, B. cylindrospora, B. formosana, B. latirima, Entoloma pseudoheimii, E. rufovinascens, Inocybe barrasae, I. ortegae, and Tulasnella robusta spp. nov.; B. abosticta var. orientalis, and B. formosana var. kentingensis vars. nov.; E. cuboidosporum var. chromostomum (syn. Rhodophyllus cuboidosporum var. chromostomum), and E. heimii (syn. R. heimii) combs. nov.