Endophytic fungi associated with the temperate palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, within and outside its natural geographic range

Abstract

Fungal endophytes associated with the palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, within and outside its natural geographic range were investigated. Endophytes were relatively common with colonization rates of 23-57% at the four sites sampled. The endophyte assemblages at the different sites were diverse with 75 fertile species of ascomycetes and mitosporic fungi. The assemblage composition at each site was similar and between seven and 13 species comprised 81-89% of the taxa present in relative frequencies of 1%. Glomerella cingulata and Phomopsis spp., were consistently dominant, and a large number of rare species were recorded. The diversity at each site was similar in number, but the abundance of isolates varied. The results obtained were comparable to those of previous studies of palm endophyte assemblages, but the assemblages showed more affinity with unrelated temperate hosts than with tropical palm hosts. Quantitative and qualitative differences in endophyte assemblages from old and young tissues were observed, and more isolates were recovered from old tissues independent of the age of the palm. The composition of the assemblage varied with several taxa being exclusively or more commonly isolated from old tissues (e.g. xylariaceous taxa, Oxydothis sp. nov.) or young tissues (e.g. Stagonospora spp., Phoma multirostrata). Some differences in the composition of the assemblage and in relative frequencies of various species were observed in trees and saplings. Significantly more isolates were recovered from the vein than intervein tissues, independent of leaf age or tree age. Tissue specificity was not exhibited by any taxa isolated from either leaf or petiole tissues, except for xylariaceous taxa in leaf tissues. Some other taxa showed a preference for leaf tissues or petioles, whereas others were equally distributed amongst all tissues. Endophyte assemblages of palms from continuous distributions were similar, but those from disjunct distributions (i.e. outside the natural geographic range of the palm, such as Australia and Switzerland), differed significantly from each other and from assemblages within continuous distributions. The relative importance values of endophyte species at the two sites in China indicates the sitespecific nature of the endophyte assemblages. Most previous studies on the endophytes of palm hosts have concentrated on tropical palms. However, this study examines the endophytes of the warm temperate palm Trachycarpus fortunei, and investigates the relative importance of host and climate related processes.

Community structure of endophytic fungi of four mangrove species in Southern China

“…De Souza Sebastianes et al (2013) reported that the colonisation rate of endophytic fungi was significantly higher in branch than in leaf among three mangrove species in Brazil. The possible explanation might be that the structure and substrates are different between twig and leaf tissues, or that the twigs are more permanent than leaves, which influence the colonisation of endophytic fungi (Taylor et al 1999; Gilbert et al 2002; Wang and Guo 2007; Guo et al 2008). …”

“…For example, Phomopsis fungi were widely isolated from mangroves (Suryanarayanan et al 1998; Suryanarayanan and Kumaresan 2000; Pang et al 2008; Xing et al 2011; Xing and Guo 2011) and non-mangrove plants (Taylor et al 1999; Guo et al 2000, 2008; Cannon and Simmons 2002; Murali et al 2006; Sun et al 2011, 2012). In addition, Pestalotiopsis as generalist fungi were common mangrove endophytes and widely occurred on plants across Palmae, Rhizophoraceae, Planchonellae, and Podocarpaceae in China (Liu et al 2010a, 2012; Xing and Guo 2011; Gong et al 2014).…”

Identification of endophytic fungi from Livistona chinensis based on morphology and rDNA sequences

“…Thirteen percent of endophytes obtained from two Licuala species in Brunei and Australia, and 11% of isolates from the palm Trachycarpus fortunei in China were mycelia sterilia (Taylor et al, 1999 ;Fro$ hlich et al, 2000). Approximately 15% of endophytes isolated from evergreen shrubs in western Oregon (Petrini et al, 1982) and c. 26n9% of endophytes isolated from leaves of Sequoia sempervirens (coastal redwood) in central California were mycelia sterilia (Espinosa-Garcia & Langenheim, 1990).…”

“…This definition has been widely used throughout the literature and uses *Author for correspondence (tel j825 2975 5632 ; fax j852 2517 6082 ; e-mail kdhyde!hkucc.hku.hk). a traditional approach for the isolation of endophytes (Taylor et al, 1999). This approach involves surface sterilization of material and isolation of fungi from the internal parts.…”

Fungal endophytes from the three-leaved caper, Crataeva magna (Lour.) DC. (Capparidaceae)

“…They also represent a large reservoir of unexplored genetic diversity. They have been isolated from monocots, grasses [6], palms [7,16,23] rainforest plants [13] and few tropical plants [5,14,[19][20][21][22]. The practical applications of these endophytes are manifold; as potential biocontrol agents, sources of novel metabolites for therapeutics, plant protection, other industrial applications, and as model systems for studying the hostparasite interactions in natural ecosystems [18].…”