**Author details**

**9. Research prospects of bamboo ascomycetes**

178 Bamboo - Current and Future Prospects

**10. Conclusions**

**Acknowledgements**

Currently, 1300 fungi have been recorded on bamboo substrates. These are including 150 basidiomycetes [3], 800 ascomycetous species, 240 hyphomycetous taxa, and 110 coelomycetous taxa. It provides large opportunities on the utilization of fungi on bamboo. For example, species in *Hypoxylon* Bull., which form large stromata, can be easier to see on bamboo culms. In the recent years, a new secondary metabolite named lenormandins, which are further representatives of the well-known azaphilones [66], was found from *Hypoxylon* spp. More than 18 species in *Hypoxylon* have been occurred so far on bamboo (**Figure 11**). There may be some other interesting unknown azaphilones in *Hypoxylon* species, which may still wait for extraction. Numerous fungi from bamboo were documented, and some pathogens were isolated as well, such as *Arthrinium phaeospermum* (Corda), M.B. Ellis, and *Phyllachora graminis* (Pers.) Fuckel. Approximately 300 bamboo fungal diseases were so far reported [5–7, 67], which provides the essential step to understand ecosystem communication [3]. It is showed that some bamboo ascomycetes have a high value in medical treatment, such as *Engleromyces goetzi*, *H. bambusae,* and *S. bambusicola*. However, their effective compounds can be only obtained from stromata, which cannot be cultivated successfully at the moment [68]. The phylogenic relationship between *H. bambusae* and *S. bambusicola* needs to be carried out to understand the reason why *H. bambusae* produces more hypocrellin than the latter. Many interesting and subsequent studies on bamboo ascomycetes are still awaiting and needs to be conducted, and large numbers of new ascomycetous taxa on bamboo are also still waiting for collection and isolation.

Bamboo plays an important role in the forest ecosystem and is treated as an economic plant for human. Studying the bamboo fungi can provide the chances for controlling bamboo pathogens and promoting bamboo cultivation. Based on our study, more than 1300 bamboo ascomycetes have so far been described or recorded; however, most of them do not have detailed morphology or sequence data. Even some important ascomycetous species still need re-studying. The morphologic characters of bamboo ascomycetes are various in their ascomata, asci, and ascospores (**Figures 5**–**7**). They occur on different genera of bamboo host; however, most of the hosts have not been identified to species level. Bamboo ascomycetes are diverse in their taxonomic placements, with more than 120 families and 400 genera distributed according to the references. Phylogenic analyses of bamboo ascomycetes need more study and should focus on protein genes. It is recommended that more fresh specimens need to be collected in the future, and the existing species should be epitypified or designated as reference specimens. Efforts are required in naming the taxa to avoid confusion, such as *Hypocrella bambusae*. Host species

names should be identified in the future for those willing to work on host specificity.

This work was supported by the Key Laboratory of Yunnan Province Universities of the Diversity and Ecological Adaptive Evolution for Animals and Plants on Yun-Gui Plateau, the Dong-Qin Dai, Li-Zhou Tang\* and Hai-Bo Wang

\*Address all correspondence to: tanglizhou@163.com

Center for Yunnan Plateau Biological Resources Protection and Utilization, College of Biological Resource and Food Engineering, Qujing Normal University, Qujing, Yunnan, People's Republic of China
