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Most of the activities of the commission occur in subcommissions, which report below. During 2003, the main commission attempted to resolve issues of its membership, and began to consider future activities. The question of the accuracy of identifications associated with public gene sequences has been of growing concern to mycologists, and may be an area where the commission can play a role. Keith Seifert has initiated discussions with the Canadian representatives to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to see if association of sequences with specific specimens included in the GBIF databases might be one global solution to this problem. In the meantime, the subcommissions are encouraged to follow the lead of the Hypocrea/Trichoderma subcommission and consider the development of a database of sequences of types and other reliably identified specimens/cultures that can be used by the taxonomic community for a more reliable identification than may be possible with the larger public databases.
Diaporthe and Phomopsis: Amy Rossman tried to motivate interest in establishing this subcommission, but there was limited interest. Presently on hold.
Fusarium subcommission: The Fusarium subcommission met during the 9th International Fusarium Workshop in Sydney, Australia in Jan. 2003. Keith Seifert resigned as chair person and was succeeded by David Geiser. Discussions on possible activities for the subcommission led to the idea that a list of names should be posted on the web to reflect the many changes in nomenclature and new species since the last available monographs from the 1980s. Keith Seifert sent a draft list to David Geiser for future consideration. The next Fusarium workshop is planned for Italy in 2008 in association with the 9th International Plant Pathology Congress.
Hypocrea and Trichoderma: The first activity of the subcommission on Hypocrea and Trichoderma taxonomy (ISTH) was to create a website (http://www.isth.info) on the internal server of the institute of its chairman (C.P. Kubicek). The domain is aimed to serve as (i) ISTH internal source of information (members, meetings, newsletters, etc.) and (ii) as a platform where all ISTH achievements and agreements will be presented to Hypocrea/Trichoderma community. For these reasons two site links bars are proposed and should by filled with information. Towards a clarification of gene sequences used for species identification in Hypocrea and Trichoderma, a collaborative project between the group of E. Monte (Salamanca, Spain) and C.P. Kubicek (Vienna, Austria) is under way which aims at the development of an on-line database of expert-verified Hypocrea/Trichoderma DNA sequences (ISTH Sequence Verification Tool). The first draft version of this database can be seen on http://genet-server.ibtm.tuwien.ac.at/isth/isthseq/, which will then be a unique tool for the molecular identification of Hypocrea and Trichoderma and clarify confusion about strain identities for sequences currently deposited in GenBank. International collaborations are currently performed among several ISTH members (J. Bissett, C.P. Kubicek, Q. Migheli, E. Monte, G. Szakacz, T. Xu, D. Zafari) on the identification of new taxa from diverse geographic habitats. Also, a collaboration has been started between W.M. Jaklitsch (Vienna, Austria) and G.J. Samuels (Beltsville, MD) towards an assessment of biodiversity of Hypocrea in Central Europe. In addition, the groups of Samuels, Kubicek and Bissett have published papers in 2003 on the description of new taxa in Hypocrea and Trichoderma. The second open meeting of ISTH took place on the occasion of 14th Congress of European Mycologists in September 2003 in Crimea, Ukraine. The scientific program of this meeting contained 7 lectures and several poster presentations on Hypocrea/Trichoderma taxonomy. Moreover representatives of two labs studying Trichoderma (T. Gromovykh, Krasnoyarsk, Russia and F. Alimova, Kazan, Russia) became new members of subcommission. The next meeting is proposed for September 2004 in Hangzhou, China, on the occasion of the Trichoderma and Gliocladium workshop.
Mycosphaerella and anamorphs: The subcommission on Mycosphaerella and its anamorphs have not met since the commission was initiated in Oslo in 2002. There has been considerable research activity. In 2003, a major revision was published dealing with Cercospora anamorph names of Mycosphaerella. This has since been converted to a database, and will be able to go online in the near future. Names of Septoria anamorphs have been compiled, and are also ready for publication later this year. The revision of Mycosphaerella names has also reached a stage where these could be published, as has a list of all Cladosporium names. A revision of Mycosphaerella anamorph genera is planned for 2005. Collections of all these taxa have been progressing well, and a huge molecular database has also been compiled. A proposal was written to obtain support to sequence the genome of Mycosphaerella graminicola, but was not submitted due to some logistic problems. Meanwhile, the Mycosphaerella group working on banana diseases met with those working on M. graminicola (wheat), and an international genomics consortium was established, which will have a web site managed by INIPAB. It is envisaged that towards the end of 2004 the ICTF subcommission will have its own web page on the web site of the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures.
respectfully submitted
Keith A. Seifert (chair), Gen Okada (secretary)
This work by International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.