Dacampiaceae Körb., [as ‘Dacampieae’] Syst. Lich. Germ.: 322 (1855).
MycoBank number: MB 80680; Index Fungorum number: IF 80680; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08195, 35 species.
Biotrophic or necrotrophic on lichens, rarely lichenized, rarely saprobic. Sexual morph: Ascomata perithecioid, mostly uni-locular, with a central ostiole, lacking setae, black, mostly subglobose to obpyriform, rarely elongate or irregularly shaped, solitary and scattered over the substratum or in groups, superficial to immersed-erumpent. Peridium thick, composed of several layers of angular pseudoparenchymatous, radially compressed, thick-walled cells usually of textura angularis, reddish to dark brown, or pale brown to colorless, surrounded by a dark brown involucrellum, rarely also with cephalothecioid plates. Hamathecium comprising numerous, hyaline, septate, usually branched, anastomosing, cellular pseudoparaphyses, sometimes immersed in gel. Asci up to 8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, elongate-clavate to cylindrical, short- pedicellate, with a thick-walled apex and a small, sometimes indistinct ocular chamber, I-, more rarely K/I+ bluish. Ascospores 1–2-seriate, ellipsoid to fusiform, in most species brown to dark brown, more rarely hyaline to pale brown, 1- or more septate to muriform, often constricted at the septa, smooth or rarely verruculose, perispore present in some species. Asexual morph: pycnidial states reported in a few genera, e.g. Aaosphaeria (microsphaeropsis-like), Eopyrenula (colourless, simple microconidia and brown, 1- or more septate macroconidia).
Type – Dacampia A. Massal.
Notes – Dacampiaceae is considered as a heterogeneous assemblage of genera with morphological similarities to taxa of Pleosporales. The family was formerly placed in Dothideales (Eriksson & Hawksworth 1986). Kirk et al. (2001) accepted 15 genera in this family that was placed in the Pleosporales. Lumbsch & Huhndorf (2007), as Dothideomycetes, families incertae sedis included Aaosphaeria Aptroot, but excluded Byssothecium, Immotthia, Moristroma, Pseudonitschkia and Sinodidymella, with 11 genera accepted. Hyde et al. (2013) re-included Pseudonitschkia but excluded Cocciscia and Kalaallia, with 10 genera accepted. They considered the family as ‘Dothideomycetes, families incertae sedis’. Ertz et al. (2015) sequenced the type of Dacampiaceae and placed the family in the Pleosporales. In the same phylogeny, the lichenicolous genera Polycoccum and Clypeococcum were excluded from the Dacampiaceae and placed in the new family Polycoccaceae within the Trypetheliales. Other members of Polycoccum sensu lato were included in the Pleosporales in Phaeosphaeriaceae. Munkovalsaria was also excluded from the Dacampiaceae and placed in the Didymosphaeriaceae (Pleosporales) (Ertz et al. 2015). The monotypic genus Aaosphaeria was sequenced by Vu et al. (2019) but its familial affinity was not shown. No sequence data are available for Eopyrenula, Leptocucurthis, Pseudonitschkia and Weddellomyces making their placement within the family highly uncertain. Pyrenidium Nyl. was re-described by Doilom et al. (2018) and several members of this genus were sequenced recently and form a distinct lineage within Pleosporales sensu lato for which Pyrenidiaceae was resurrected (Huanraluek et al. 2019). Thus, six genera are tentatively accepted in Dacampiaceae here. Most species of Dacampiaceae are lichenicolous, and most seem to be host-specific. The type of Dacampia is remarkable in being lichenized, and a further genus often included in the Dacampiaceae, Eopyrenula, is a facultative lichen. Several poorly known genera, some with aberrant characters, such as hyaline ascospores and unbranched hamathecial filaments, mainly growing on plants, are provisionally kept in the Dacampiaceae; they are commented on and keyed out below.
The relationships of Dacampiaceae with other families of Pleosporales needs further study with multi-genes analyses, because the backbone of the phylogenetic tree using LSU sequence data is poorly resolved within the Pleosporales where the family appears to be related to the Leptosphaeriaceae (Ertz et al. 2015).