Figure 2. Birth, life and death of spliceosomal introns in fungi. (A) Gained introns are single gains in Cladosporium fulvum, Dothistroma septosporum, Mycosphaerella graminicola, Mycosphaerella fijiensis or Septoria musiva as determined in Table 2. Ancestral introns are conserved among all fungi included in this study. Lost introns are single losses in one of the five fungal species. Length of lost introns that are still present in the other four species was calculated and corrected for outliers using the formula: (sum-max-min)/(length-2). A non-parametric Kruskall-Wallis test was performed (p < 0.0001), followed by a Dunn’s pairwise comparison test at α = 0.05 significance level. Only significant differences are indicated. (B) Length distribution of non-duplicated introns (NDIs), introner-like elements (ILEs) and lost introns in the five fungal species listed above.