Evidence of Fungi Associated with Cereal Grains in Russia.

In total, 46 strains from five different geographic regions of Russia were explored with respect to genetic diversity, morphology, and secondary metabolites. Based on the results of PCR, 59% and 28% of the strains were identified as and , respectively. As a result of sequencing four genome regions, namely ITS, LSU, BTUB, and RPB2 (2778 bp), five genetically and phenotypically similar strains from Western Siberia were identified as , which, according to our findings, is the prevalent species in this territory. This is the first record of in Russia. Attempts were made to distinguish between species and to identify species-specific morphological characteristics in the anamorph and teleomorph stages and physiological properties. We examined the occurrence frequency of conidia with different numbers of septa in the strains of . The predominance of three-septate macroconidia in was higher than that in and typically exceeded 60% occurrence. Most and strains formed walled protoperithecia on wheat stems. Only three strains of and one strain each of and produced mature perithecia. The growth rate of strains was significantly lower on agar media at 5-25 °C than those of and strains. Multimycotoxin analysis by HPLC-MS/MS revealed that the strains of three species did not produce any toxic metabolites.