Ocala
Ocala Raja & Shearer
Saprobic on submerged wood. Sexual morph: Ascomata scattered, immersed or superficial, uniloculate, globose to subglobose, brown to dark brown, or semi-transparent, membranous, with ostiolate papilla. Peridium thin-walled, composed of textura angularis to epidermoidea in surface view. Pseudoparaphyses sparse, cellular, broad, hyaline, septate, branched. Asci 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, obclavate to fusoid, flattened at the apex, with an elongate, tapered pedicel. Ascospores overlapping uni- to bi-seriate, narrowly ellipsoidal to fusiform, straight or slightly curved, hyaline, phragmoseptate, thick-walled, with or without amorphous apical gelatinous appendages (Raja et al. 2009). Asexual morph: Undetermined.
Type species: Ocala scalariformis Raja & Shearer
Notes: The monotypic genus Ocala was introduced for a freshwater species O. scalariformis collected from Florida (Raja et al. 2009). Ocala is characterized by obclavate to fusoid asci, narrowly ellipsoidal to fusiform, hyaline, phragmoseptate, thick-walled ascospores with or without amorphous apical gelatinous appendages (Raja et al. 2009). The phylogenetic placement of Ocala is questionable because the ex-type strain F121 of O. scalariformis clustered with Natipusilla bellaspora in Natipusillales with high bootstrap support (Raja et al. 2015). However, Ocala has brown to dark brown ascomata, obclavate to fusoid asci and phragmoseptate ascospores contrasting with the hyaline to light brown ascomata, subglobose asci and mostly one-septate ascospores of Natipusilla (Raja et al. 2009, 2012; Ferrer et al. 2011). We notice that only SSU sequence data of O. scalariformis (NG_061098, F121, from holotype) is deposited in GenBank and included in the phylogenetic analysis of Raja et al. (2015). The phylogenetic placement of O. scalariformis is pending awaiting more sequences. Ocala is presently placed in Dothideomycetes genera incertae sedis (Wijayawardene et al. 2018, 2020). (Dong et al. 2020)
List of freshwater Ocala species
Ocala scalariformis Raja & Shearer, Fungal Diversity 34: 80 (2009)
Freshwater distribution: USA (Raja et al. 2009)
References
Raja HA, El-Elimat T, Oberlies NH, Shearer CA, Miller AN, Tanaka K, Hashimoto A, Fournier J (2015) Minutisphaerales (Dothideomycetes, Ascomycota): A new order of freshwater ascomycetes including a new family, Minutisphaeraceae, and two new species from North Carolina, USA. Mycologia 107:845–862. https://doi.org/10.3852/15-013
Raja HA, Miller AN, Shearer CA (2012) Freshwater ascomycetes: Natipusillaceae, a new family of tropical fungi, including Natipusilla bellaspora sp. nov. from the Peruvian Amazon. Mycologia 104:569–573. https://doi.org/10.3852/11-150
Ferrer A, Miller AN, Shearer CA (2011) Minutisphaera and Natipusilla: Two new genera of freshwater Dothideomycetes. Mycologia 103:411–423. https://doi.org/10.3852/10-177
Wijayawardene NN, Hyde KD, Lumbsch HT, Liu JK, Maharachchikumbura SSN, Ekanayaka AH, Tian Q, Phookamsak R (2018) Outline of Ascomycota: 2017. Fungal Divers 88:167–263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-018-0394-8
Wijayawardene NN, Hyde KD, Al-ani LKT, Tedersoo L, Haelewaters D, Rajeshkumar KC, Zhao R, Aptroot A, Leontyev D V, Ramesh K, Tokarev YS, Dai D, Letcher PM, Steven L, Ertz D, Lumbsch HT, Kukwa M, Issi V, Madrid H, Phillips AJL, Selbmann L, Walter P, Horváth E, Bensch K, Kirk P, Raja HA, Radek R, Papp V, Dima B, Ma J, Malosso E, Takamatsu S, Rambold G, Gannibal PB, Triebel D, Gautam AK, Avasthi S, Suetrong S, Timdal E, Fryar SC, Delgado G, Réblová M, Doilom M, Dolatabadi S, Humber RA, Kodsueb R, Sánchez- I, Goto BT, Silva DKA, Souza FA De, Silva GA, Silva IR, Błaszkowski J, Jobim K, Maia LC, Barbosa FR, Fiuza PO, Divakar PK, Shenoy BD, Castañeda-ruiz RF, Papizadeh M, Heredia G, Bakhshi M, Boehm E, Youssef N, Vincent P, Lawrey JD, Santiago ALCMDA, Jadson DP, Souza-motta CM, Firmino AL, Tian Q, Monteiro JS, Grossart H, Suija A, Etayo J, Tsurykau A, Kuhnert E, Mungai P, Damm U, Li Q, Zhang H, Boonmee S, Lu Y, Becerra AG, Brearley FQ, Motiejūnaitė J, Khare R, Gaikwad S, Siril DA, Tang L, He M, Flakus A, Zhurbenko MP, Mckenzie EHC, Bhat DJ, Kui-liu J, Raza M, Nassonova ES, Prieto M, Jayalal RGU, Yurkov A, Schnittler M, Shchepin ON, Yuri K, Liu P, Cavender JC, Kang Y, Zhang L, Xu R, Li Y, Monika C, Ekanayaka AH, Wen T, Lateef AA, Pereira OL, Navathe S, Hawksworth DL, Fan X, Dissanayake LS (2020) Outline of Fungi and fungus-like taxa. Mycosphere 11:1–367. https://doi.org/10.5943/mycosphere/11/1/8
Recent Genus
1Neochlamydotubeufia
Neohelicomyces
Recent Species
Neohelicomyces submersusNeohelicomyces hyalosporus
Neohelicomyces grandisporus