On this web site we are using the informal term "plasmodiophorids" for the group that was the subject of Karling's 1968 monograph, The Plasmodiophorales, and for a number of years was included in the fungi (Sparrow 1960, Waterhouse 1972). Donald Barr recognized that ultrastructural evidence suggested that plasmodiophorids should be considered as protozoa (Barr 1992), and relatively recent studies (Adl et al. 2005, Bass et al. 2009, Cavalier-Smith & Chao 2003) classified plasmodiophorids as Phytomyxea within the Cercozoa, which is in a supergroup known as the Rhizaria in what many people traditionally would consider as protozoa. Burki et al. (2010), however, grouped the Phytomyxea with Gromia Dujardin along with a clade of Acantherea and Foraminifera outside the core Cercozoa when some assumptions were made using large numbers of phytomyxid gene sequences. It does not matter if you put the plasmodiophorids in the Cercozoa vs. the clade with Acantherea and Foraminifera close to the core Cercozoa, they are still in the Rhizaria, not in the fungi. So mycologists and plant pathologists it is time to get over it and stop referring to the plasmodiophorids as "parasitic fungi." Stay tuned to see what the final outcome of the molecular phylogenetic studies will tell us. I'm looking forward to it. ... [Information of the supplier]
