More than 20,000 fungal strains, including new genera and new species, have been isolated from various places, such as marine environments, subtropical areas, and oceanic islands, and they may be used as resources for screening new bioactive substances. Culture broths were used for various screening tests. As a result, more than 70 new bioactive compounds were isolated. The biological activities of the compounds included lipid metabolism and antiviral, insecticidal, antibacterial, and antifungal effects. Structurally variable compounds were isolated, such as terpenes, peptides, and macrolides. The co-culture method was useful for identifying new compounds. Fungi are useful microorganisms and good resources for screening novel bioactive compounds.

　Cryptomeria gall disease is a serious disease that affects Cryptomeria japonica in Japan. This disease-causing fungus is known as Nitschkia tuberculifera, which has not been accurately described as per the nomenclature. Consequently, this fungus is nomen nudum and its taxonomic position has not been determined. In this study, we re-examined the taxonomic position of the Cryptomeria gall disease-causing fungus based on morphology and molecular phylogenetic analysis. The morphological characteristics of this fungus resembled a species belonging to the genus Botryosphaeria. However, the molecular phylogenetic analysis using 28S rDNA region showed that this fungus was included in a clade with the genus Phyllosticta. Furthermore, multigene phylogenetic analysis using ITS and 28S rDNA region, as well as actin and β-tubulin partial gene sequences, showed that this fungus was included in a monophyletic clade in the genus Phyllosticta. It is necessary to reconsider the classification criteria for these genera to establish the taxonomic position of this fungus. However, recent molecular phylogenetic analysis supported the separation of the genera Botryosphaeria and Phyllosticta. Therefore, it was suggested that this fungus was more likely to be a new species in the genus Phyllosticta.

　Two species of Monoblepharis were isolated from submerged fallen branches of broad-leaved trees collected from a pond in Chiba and a river in Hokkaido, Japan. They were identified as Monoblepharis hypogyna and Monoblepharis macrandra based on their morphological characteristics in pure cultures. Both species were new records for Japan.

　We tested the inhibitory effects of a rose oil and the four main volatile components of damask rose oil, i.e., phenylethanol, benzyl alcohol, geraniol, and nerol, on the growth of Cladosporium spp. and Aureobasidium spp. using direct contact and vapor contact experiments based on an agar medium dilution method. The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the oil in six strains (C. cladosporioides NBRC 4459, NBRC 6348, A. pullulans NBRC 6353, and three wild strains) was 0.1％ (v/v) by direct contact at 25℃. MIC of the oil combined with 5％ (v/v) ethanol was less than 0.025％. Geraniol and nerol had higher antifungal activities than phenylethanol and benzyl alcohol in all strains. The activities of the rose oil and its four components were lower in the vapor contact experiment than direct contact experiment.

　Annotation, the assignment of genes and their functional properties, is a crucial step during any genome project. The genetic background of microorganism features can be reconstituted by fine-level curated annotations. The rapid increase in the number of genome projects has allowed us to access numerous fungal genomic datasets. Utilization of automatic annotation pipelines has also been trying to keep pace with the speed of sequence outputs. However, the transfer of annotation generally used in automatic pipelines makes it difficult to access manually curated information. Users are expected to understand the differences in the annotation quality and use appropriate genomic data to suit their own purposes.