Phyllosphere and phylloplane fungi of qat in Sana'a, Yemen Arab Republic

Abstract

Eighty six species belonging to thirty one genera were collected from the qat phyllosphere (30 genera and 78 species) and phylloplane (20 genera and 64 species) of 24 varieties tested. In the phyllosphere the most frequent genera were Cladosporium, Aspergillus and Alternaria followed by Penicillium, Drechslera, Fusarium, Curvularia, Phoma and Chaetomium. From the preceding genera the most prevalent species were C. herbarum, C. macrocarpum, A. niger, A. flavus, A. alternata, A. phragmospora, P. citrinum, P. notatum, D. spicifera, D. halodes, D. hawaiiensis, F. oxysporum, F. moniliforme, C. lunata, P. humicola, P. herbarum and C. globosum. In the phylloplane the order of genera frequency was more or less the same, while the most common species were C. herbarum, C. sphaerospermum, A. niger, A. flavus, A. alternata and A. tenuissima.

Diversity of microfungi in the phylloplane of plants growing in a Mediterranean ecosystem

“…KAMAL and SINGH 1970, MOUBASHER et al 1971, MISHRA and DICKINSON 1981, ANDREWS et al 1987, ANDREWS and HARRIS 2000. Cladosporium sphaerospermum, a very frequent fungal specie in our study, has been found less frequently in the phylloplane of other plants (DOMSCH et al 1980, ALHUBAISHI andABDEL-KADER 1991). This fungus has been more related with leaf litter substrates (DOMSCH et al 1980), cotton debris (SALEEM et al 1975 and decaying stems of Urtica dioica Lin.…”

“…This anatomical property, and particularly the shape of the wax crystals, together with the trichomes, will determine leaf wettability (FOKKEMA 1991). In general, the species richness in phylloplane samples from a Mediterranean ecosystem was smaller when compared with other studies of fungal communities from several ecosystems, specially, when compared with both tropical and temperate habitats (DICKINSON 1976, BREEZE and DIX 1981, ALHUBAISHI and ABDEL-KADER 1991, BILL and POLISHOOK 1994. When compared with Antarctic habitats (MÖLER and DREYFUSS 1996), extreme alpine environment (PETROVIC et al 2000) and samples of seaweeds from Iberian coasts (GENILLOUD et al 1994), Mediterranean ecosystem showed more species diversity.…”

“…Cladosporium cladosporioides is a very ubiquitous hyphomycete, which was found in the phylloplane of many plant species (e.g. BREEZE and DIX 1981, MISHRA and DICKIN-SON 1981, ANDREWS et al 1987, ALHUBAISHI and ABDEL-KADER 1991. Alternaria alternata is another very common fungus found in the phylloplane of several plants (e.g.…”

“…However, a preliminary washing step was carried out in order to eliminate colonies originated from phyllosphere conidia (ALHUBAISHI and ABDEL-KADER 1991). For this purpose, 5 g of leaves from each plant were serially washed mechanically by shaking in 100 ml of sterile distilled water.…”

Basidiomycetes and larger Ascomycetes from Yemen

“…Records of smaller Ascomycetes and their anamorphs have been published by COOKE (1882 and in BALFOUR 1888), FORBES (1903), KAMAL et al (1983KAMAL et al ( , 1984, SATTAR & HAIT-HAMI (1986), SATTAR & BAHAMISH (1990), ALHUBAISHI & ABDEL-KADER (1991), YU et al (1993, EL-SAID (1995), EL-SAID & ABDEL-HAFEZ (1994), KUATE (1998).…”