Sporormiella is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of fungi in the Sporormiaceae

Sporormiaceae

The Sporormiaceae are a family of fungi in the order Pleosporales. Taxa have a cosmopolitan distribution and are saprobic on dung and rotting vegetation.-Description:...

 family. Species of the genus are obligately coprophilous

Coprophilous fungi

Coprophilous fungi are a type of saprobic fungi that grow on animal dung. The hardy spores of coprophilous species are unwittingly consumed by herbivores from vegetation, and are excreted along with the plant matter...

, occurring on the dung of domestic livestock as well as wild herbivores. The genus is distributed across boreal

Boreal ecosystem

The term boreal is usually applied to ecosystems localized in subarctic and subantarctic zones, although Austral is also used for the latter....

 and temperate

Temperate

In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...

 regions of the world, and contains about 80 species. The spores have characteristic features–they are dark brown, septate and have a pronounced sigmoid germination pore, which enables their use in paleoecology

Paleoecology

Paleoecology uses data from fossils and subfossils to reconstruct the ecosystems of the past. It involves the study of fossil organisms and their associated remains, including their life cycle, living interactions, natural environment, and manner of death and burial to reconstruct the...

 as a proxy

Proxy (statistics)

In statistics, a proxy variable is something that is probably not in itself of any great interest, but from which a variable of interest can be obtained...

for the abundance of grazing mammals.