Epifoliar fungi are a group of poorly studied fungal symbionts that coinhabit the surface of living plants. Meliolaceae is the largest group of epifoliar fungi and has been considered as obligate parasites. We investigated the taxonomy of Meliolaceae and the coevolutionary events with their host plants using time-calibrated cophylogeny based on large subunit, small subunit, and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence data obtained from 17 different fungal taxa and rbcL, ITS, and trnH-psbA sequence data from their corresponding hosts. Nine new fungal species are introduced in this paper and Appendiculella is synonymized under Asteridiella. The dominant coevolutionary events during the Cretaceous and Cenozoic are cospeciation and host shift, respectively. We hypothesize that the evolutionary history of epifoliar fungi can be divided into three major periods: origins of families, formations of genera, and diversification of species. The rise of angiosperms prompted the evolution of modern epifoliar fungi and the diversification of orders of Angiospermae fostered the formation of epifoliar fungal genera. Phylogenetically, epifoliar fungal genera can be delimited according to their coevolutionary patterns and divergent periods.

中文翻译：

---

揭示楝树科和被子植物之间的进化关系

表叶真菌是一组研究很少的真菌共生体，它们共同栖息在活植物的表面。楝科是最大的表叶真菌群，被认为是专性寄生虫。我们基于从 17 个不同真菌类群和rbcL、ITS 和trnH-获得的大亚基、小亚基和内部转录间隔 (ITS) 序列数据，使用时间校准的系统发育研究了楝科的分类学及其宿主植物的共同进化事件。来自其相应主机的psbA序列数据。本文介绍了九种新的真菌物种，Appendiculella与Asteridiella同义。. 白垩纪和新生代的主要共同进化事件分别是共同物种形成和宿主转移。我们假设表叶真菌的进化历史可以分为三个主要时期：科的起源、属的形成和物种的多样化。被子植物的兴起促进了现代表叶真菌的进化，被子植物目的多样化促进了表叶真菌属的形成。在系统发育上，表叶真菌属可以根据它们的共同进化模式和不同时期来划分。