An Addition to pestalotioid fungi in China: Neopestalotiopsis fragariae sp. nov. causing leaf spots on Fragaria × ananassa

Pestalotioid fungi are widely distributed and cause diseases on a myriad of crops, including strawberries. In this study, we introduce a new species, Neopestalotiopsis fragariae, that has been isolated from a leaf spot of strawberry in Guangdong Province, China. Neopestalotiopsis fragariae is classified as a new taxon based on the morphology and phylogenetic analysis of the combined ITS, β-TUB and TEF-1α sequence data, together with pairwise homoplasy index results. To our knowledge, this is the first report of N. fragariae that causes leaf spots on strawberries in China. This study provides novel data about the plant-pathogenic species associated with strawberries.