It is often difficult to decide which cyanobacteria found in endolithic habitats of calcite spring-tufa deposits are present as ephemeral components of the biota or are persistent, structural elements. To answer this question, we repeatedly studied two microhabitats of contrasting calcareous tufa springs in the European Alps. Pigment extracts, fluorescence probe measurements of in situ samples and traditional microscopy confirmed the dominance of cyanobacteria over eukaryotic algae and their viability in both microhabitats. Spring Site 1 (Laas, Northern Italy) is characterized by a highly variable, moist to dry and sun-exposed waterfall tufa consisting of fibrous calcite. A segment of these deposits in the lateral flank of a grotto contained dark endolithic layers in dim light, 1-2 mm below the surface, where aggregated cyanobacterial cells were dominant but not directly attached to calcites, a potential sign of gentle endolithic dissolution rather than calcite precipitation induced by cyanobacteria. Site 2 (Mühlau, Austria), in contrast, is a moss-tufa microhabitat associated with a seepage spring situated in a shady gorge, where the targeted stromatolites consisted of bark-like sheets of friable, orange to light-brown when wet (drying violet) 'styrofoam'- like aggregates of minute crystallites on the day-light exposed surfaces. These calcites were observed to nucleate directly on external sheaths of viable cyanobacteria trichomes. A polyphasic approach including LM, SEM, TEM exhibited a number of identical but also some divergent cyanobacteria of which two key taxa were specific for each of the two microhabitats (Nostoc and Pseudoscytonema at Sites 1 and 2 respectively). Both cyanobacterial communities characterised, by the cloning of 16S rDNA showed a dominance of mostly unknown and partly divergent filamentous cyanobacteria assigned to the order of Synechococcales. Our microhabitat study of alpine crenal calcites highlights the rather divergent biotic responses of cyanobacteria within spring tufa deposits.

Xylomyces is characterized by the absence of conidiomata, conidiophores, conidiogenous cells, and conidia. The genus only produces chains of large, dark, thick-walled, dry, multiseptate chlamydospores with or without constricted septa. During an investigation of aquatic hyphomycetes on submerged wood and leaf litter in a stream in the Brazilian Amazon, we found four of the accepted eight species of Xylomyces. Xylomyces acerosisporus, X. aquaticus, and X. foliicola are new records to the Brazilian Amazon, while X. giganteus is a new record for the southern Amazonian region. Xylomyces giganteus showed the highest relative frequency and occurrence and X. foliicola displayed an intermediate relative frequency and occurrence. Xylomyces acerosisporus and X. aquaticus showed the lowest relative frequency, while X. acerosisporus indicated the lowest relative occurrence. Descriptions, notes, geographic distributions, and illustrations are presented for all species of Xylomyces found in this study. We also provide a key and a table for all species.

A fungus with dark brown hyphae, thick melanized walls and slow growth was isolated from roots of Ferula ovina without any symptoms of disease. In a Bayesian inference phylogenetic analysis, the fungus clustered in a clade containing species with mostly 4-celled conidia as a sister of Ochroconis longiphorum, differing from that species in source of isolation, colony growth rate, conidial size and shape. Morphological and molecular evidence using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and nuclear ribosomal RNA regions (ITS and nucLSU) separated this isolate from other known Ochroconis species. Based on this strain, Ochroconis ferulica sp. nov. is firstly described, illustrated, and compared with similar species.

A new species, Michenera incrustata from southern China, is described and illustrated. It is the second species in Michenera and differs from the generic type, M. atrocreas, by its hyaline, thick-walled lamprocystidia and larger basidia and basidiospores. The 5.8S–ITS2 and nrLSU sequence similarities between M. incrustata and M. atrocreas are 83% of 437 base pairs and 95.5% of 870 base pairs, respectively.