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Sclerococcum

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Taxonomy

The genus was circumscribed in 1825 by Elias Magnus Fries. The type species is Sclerococcum sphaerale, originally described in 1814 by Erik Acharius (as Spiloma sphaerale). This fungus is a lichenicolous hyphomycete – a mould that lives on a lichen. Most of the Sclerococcum species described since then are also lichenicolous, and most have a restricted host range. Molecular phylogenetics analysis published in 2012 showed that Sclerococcum sphaerale grouped together in a clade with species of Dactylospora in the class Eurotiomycetes.

In 2016, Réblová and colleagues proposed a new family Sclerococcaceae in a new order (Sclerococcales) to accommodate the type genus Sclerococcum, Dactylospora, Rhopalophora, three strains of beetle-associated fungi, and an isolate of Fusichalara minuta. This classification was not accepted in the 2017 Outline of the Ascomycota, which retained the family Dactylosporaceae.

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