Fungi from Namib desert fairy circle grass and Novel Curvularia species

<em>Stipagrostis ciliata </em>grasses from the Namib desert fairy circles were sampled from three sampling regions, and the fungal genera associated were assessed. A total of 487 fungal strains were identified, representing a total of 54 genera and 114 species. Community comparisons also indicated that some genera were unique to certain sampling regions. The most predominant genera included <em>Curvularia </em>(n = 73), <em>Fusarium </em>(n = 73), and <em>Monosporascus </em>(n = 41), with <em>Curvularia </em>including the largest number of species (n = 12). Four <em>Curvularia</em> species were cosiddered novel and described using both multi-locus sequence and morphological comparisons. Multi-locus sequence comparisons were conducted using <em>GAPDH, </em>ITS and <em>TEF1 </em>sequences generated from literature and phylogenies run using IQTree. Phylogenies were edited using Affinity Designer. These species were described as <em>C. gobabebensis</em>, <em>C. maraisii, C. namibensis</em>, and <em>C. stipagrosticola. </em>