2005 Volume 55 Issue 1 Pages 55-63
Current status of taxonomy of Fusarium species causing head blight of wheat and barley, especially on the F. graminearum complex, is commented based on the published papers. Two distinct groups or populations have been known among the F. graminearum complex, and the Group 1 population of F. graminearum, causing mainly crown rot of wheat and so on, was recently described as F. pseudograminearum (teleomorph: Gibberella coronicola) based on comparative morphology, molecular phylogenetic analyses and cross experiments among the strains. Phylogenetic structures of the Group 2 population of F. graminearum were also studied and strains of the Group 2 population from various geographic origins were revealed to be consisted of many distinct phylogenetic lineages. Because differentiation of these lineages based on phenotypic characters was difficult, they have been designated with numbers from 1 to 9. Recently eight lineages were described as eight distinct new species based on species-specific fixed nucleotides characters, in addition to F. graminearum s. str., corresponding to the lineage 7.
