Corrections to recent changes in the taxonomy of the Sordariales

Abstract

The classification of taxa belonging to the Sordariales has been problematic over the years. With the beginning of the DNA era, ascospore morphology, which was the main criterium for the delimitation of taxa in the Sordariales, was demonstrated to not be useful for inferring taxonomic relationships especially at the genus level. In the past decades, the combination of both morphological and molecular data allowed the reclassification of these taxa. Recently, a study of some often overlooked Diaporthomycetidae and Sordariomycetidae included a new taxonomic classification for members of the Sordariales, many of which were based on nomenclatural errors or which lacked sufficient data to support their hypotheses. The authors did not contribute any new DNA sequences, but instead relied on datasets generated by previous authors in their published phylogenetic studies. Surprisingly, different results were obtained contradicting these previous studies and, in an act of taxonomic vandalism, five new families were introduced without performing further molecular analyses to verify the incongruencies with these previous studies. Three of these new families, which we consider doubtful, are Bombardiaceae, Lasiosphaeridaceae and Zygospermellaceae. The family Strattoniaceae is here considered superfluous since it was introduced to accommodate only a single genus and delimited based on a species that is not the type species of Strattonia. The Neoschizotheciaceae was erected based on the new genus Neoschizothecium, which was introduced to accommodate members of Schizothecium since Huang et al. (2021) considered Schizothecium as a synonym of Podospora after misinterpreting their type species as the same. However, Schizothecium and Podospora have been two independent genera based on two different type species for half a century, making Neoschizothecium and Neoschizotheciaceae superfluous. Moreover, they proposed 32 new combinations, 16 of which are now superfluous or doubtful. Most of these taxonomic errors could have been avoided if a proper literature review had been performed. Two examples are the new superfluous combinations of Triangularia tarvisina and Cladorrhinum olerum, because the former is considered conspecific with Triangularia setosa, and the latter conspecific with Cladorrhinum foecundissimum, the anamorph of Arnium olerum. The focus of the current review is to provide a scientifically responsible alternative to the erroneous novelties proposed at the family, genus and species level in the recent classification of Sordariales.