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Diversity of Endophytic Fungi Associated with the Foliar Tissue of a Hemi-Parasitic Plant Macrosolen cochinchinensis

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Abstract

Foliar fungal endophytes are an important plant-associated fungal group. However, little is known about these fungi in hemi-parasitic plants, a unique plant group which derive nutrients from living plants of its hosts by haustoria while are photosynthetic to some degree. In this paper, the endophytic fungi in the leaves of a species of hemi-parasitic plant, Macrosolen cochinchinensis, were studied by both culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. By culture-dependent method, a total of 511 isolates were recovered from 452 of 600 leaf fragments (colonization rate = 75.3 %) and were identified to be 51 taxa. Valsa sp. was the most abundant (relative abundance = 38.4 %), followed by Cladosporium sp. 1 (13.5 %), Ulocladium sp. (4.3 %), Phomopsis sp. 2 (3.7 %), Hendersonia sp. (3.5 %), and Diaporthe sp. 4 (3.5 %). The Shannon index (H′) of the isolated endophytic fungi was 2.628, indicating a moderate diversity. By culture-independent method, Aspergillus spp., Cladosporium sp., Mycosphaerella sp., Acremonium strictum, and Tremella sp. were detected. To our knowledge, the Tremella species have never been detected as endophytes so far. In addition, a cloned sequence was not similar with any current sequence in the Genbank, which may represent a novel species. Altogether, this study documented endophytic fungal assemble in the leaves of M. cochinchinensis which was worthy of our attention, and may expand our knowledge about endophytic fungi within the photosynthetic tissues of plants.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to Prof. Guo Liang-Dong, Dr. Sun Xiang, and Dr. Sun Dong-Xu for their valuable suggestions to the improvement of our manuscript. Special thanks are due to Dr. Wang Mei-Xia and Dr. Dai Qun for their kindly helps in the experiments. This study was supported by the fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project no. 31300067).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Sheng-Liang Zhou, Shu-Zhen Yan, Qi-Sha Liu & Shuang-Lin Chen

  2. Key Laboratory of Biotechnology for Medicinal Plants of Jiangsu Province, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Sheng-Liang Zhou

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  1. Sheng-Liang Zhou
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Correspondence to Shuang-Lin Chen.

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Zhou, SL., Yan, SZ., Liu, QS. et al. Diversity of Endophytic Fungi Associated with the Foliar Tissue of a Hemi-Parasitic Plant Macrosolen cochinchinensis . Curr Microbiol 70, 58–66 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0680-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0680-y

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