Nutritional physiology of a rock-inhabiting, model microcolonial fungus from an ancestral lineage of the Chaetothyriales (Ascomycetes).

Rock-inhabiting black fungi [also microcolonial or meristematic fungi (MCF)] are a phylogenetically diverse group of melanised ascomycetes with distinctive morphological features that confer extensive stress tolerance and permit survival in hostile environments. The MCF strain A95 Knufia petricola (syn. Sarcinomyces petricola) belongs to an ancestral lineage of the order Chaetothyriales (class Eurotiomycetes).