Welcome to the Colletotrichum Database
Colletotrichum was described in 1831 by Corda with C. lineola. Today species in this genus are known as destructive pathogens that cause diseases and crop losses in numerous plants worldwide.
Colletotrichum forms hyaline conidia in acervuli breaking through the epidermis of the host plant. The teleomorph is Glomerella (Glomerellaceae, Hypocreomycetidae, Sordariomycetes, Ascomycota).
While a large number of species have been described (802 records in MycoBank), only 66 species were listed as being in current use by Hyde et al. (2009). Taxonomy and nomenclature in this genus is confusing: the identity of many species is questionable, while large species complexes assumed to contain various species (Johnston & Jones 1997, Sreenivasaprasad & Talhinhas 2005).
Species identification is difficult because of insufficient information in the original descriptions, missing type strains or sequence data, similar and highly variable morphological traits, low resolution of species within species complexes by using ITS sequences and different degrees of host specificity.
This online identification tool includes multi-locus sequence data, morphological and cultural characters and pictures of each species based on studies of ex-type or reference strains. The database currently comprises species with curved conidia from herbaceous hosts including the type species of the genus (Damm et al. 2009), as well as data from the studies of Damm et al. (2012a,b) and Weir et al. (2012) on the Colletotrichum acutatum, Colletotrichum boninense and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complexes as well as many other recently described or typified species (see summary by Cannon et al. 2012).
About the Colletotrichum Database
This online identification tool includes multi-locus sequence data for all included species, and morphological and cultural characters and pictures of selected species mainly based on studies of ex-type strains. The database currently comprises species with curved conidia from herbaceous hosts including the type species of the genus (Damm et al. 2009), as well as the data from treatments of the Colletotrichum acutatum (Damm et al. 2012a), Colletotrichum boninense (Damm et al. 2012b) and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Weir et al. 2012) species complexes, as well data of type specimens or ex-type strains of other species (Cannon et al. 2012).
To view a list of the species included in the database, please click on "List of included species" under the genus name in the main menu item called "Organisms included".
To view a summary of which sequences are available for which species included in the database, please click on "Included sequences" in the main menu item called "Methodology".
Data of each species include sequence data of at least five loci (ITS, GAPDH, TUB2, CHS-1 and ACT), except for C. echinochloae (only ITS), C. jasminigenum (no CHS-1 and ACT) and C. carthami (only ITS and TUB2). The following additional loci are provided for specific species complexes:
For example, you have performed a blast against all Q-bank (fungal) sequences using a fungal internal transcribed spacers of the nrDNA operon (ITS) sequence, for example that of Mycosphaerella gibsonii. The highest identity should be that of a strain of Mycosphaerella gibsonii,
by now clicking on the first hyperlink of that entry (in this case the
CBS culture number) a new page with information on that strain opens.
Under "Organism group" it states that this species belongs to
"Mycosphaerella" and under "Quarantine status" its EU and EPPO status
values are displayed as well as information on the "Diagnostic locus for
identification in Q-bank". Under the diagnostic locus section for this
species it is mentioned that ITS must be combined with beta-tubulin
(TUB2) following the Molecular Decision Scheme above. Therefore a
multilocus identification for this species using at least ITS and TUB2
is required. This can then be performed by pasting these sequences into
the appropriate locus blocks in the section "2. Sequences" of the
"Multilocus sequence ID per group" item for "Mycosphaerella".
References
- Cannon PF, Damm U, Johnston PR, Weir BS. 2012. Colletotrichum - current status and future directions. Studies in Mycology 73: 181-213.
- Damm U, Woudenberg JHC, Cannon PF, Crous PW. 2009. Colletotrichum species with curved conidia from herbaceous hosts. Fungal Diversity 39: 45–87.
- Damm U, Cannon PF, Woudenberg JHC, Crous PW. 2012a. The Colletotrichum acutatum species complex. Studies in Mycology 73: 37–113.
- Damm U, Cannon PF, Woudenberg JHC, Johnston PR, Weir BS, Tan YP, Shivas RG, Crous PW. 2012b. The Colletotrichum boninense species complex. Studies in Mycology 73: 1–36.
- Hyde KD, Cai L, Cannon PF, Crouch JA, Crous PW, Damm U, Goodwin PH, Chen H,
Johnston PR, Jones EBG, Liu ZY, McKenzie EHC, Moriwaki J, Noireung P,
Pennycook SR, Pfenning LH, Prihastuti H, Sato T, Shivas RG, Tan YP,
Taylor PWJ, Weir BS, Yang YL, Zhang JZ. (2009). Colletotrichum – names in current use. Fungal Diversity 39: 147–182.
- Johnston PR, Jones D. 1997. Relationships among Colletotrichum isolates from fruit-rots assessed using rDNA sequences. Mycologia 89: 420–430.
- Sreenivasaprasad S, Talhinhas P. 2005. Genotypic and phenotypic diversity in Colletotrichum acutatum, a cosmopolitan pathogen causing anthracnose on a wide range of hosts. Molecular Plant Pathology 6: 361–378.
- Weir B, Johnston PR, Damm U. 2012. The Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complex. Studies in Mycology 73: 115-180.