Endophytic fungi associated with the Antarctic grass Deschampsia antarctica Desv. (Poaceae)

Deschampsia antarctica Desv. (Poaceae) represents one of the two vascular plants that have colonized the Antarctic continent, which is usually exposed to extreme environmental conditions. In this work, we have characterized the endophytic fungi associated with the leaves of D. antarctica. Endophytic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar biology 2009-02, Vol.32 (2), p.161-167
Main Authors: Rosa, Luiz H, Vaz, Aline B. M, Caligiorne, Rachel B, Campolina, Sabrina, Rosa, Carlos A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Aquatic plants
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Ecology
Ecosystems
Endophytes
Environmental conditions
Flowers & plants
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Fungi
Grasses
Leaves
Life Sciences
Microbiology
Oceanography
Original Paper
Particular ecosystems
Plant Sciences
Synecology
Taxonomy
Zoology
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Summary:Deschampsia antarctica Desv. (Poaceae) represents one of the two vascular plants that have colonized the Antarctic continent, which is usually exposed to extreme environmental conditions. In this work, we have characterized the endophytic fungi associated with the leaves of D. antarctica. Endophytic fungi were recovered from 91 individual plants from different points of Admiralty Bay at King George Island, Antarctica. A total of 26 fungal isolates were obtained from 273 leaf fragments. All isolates were identified by analysis of the sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) of the rDNA. Alternaria and Phaeosphaeria were the most frequent genera associated with the plant. Other fungal isolates were identified as Entrophospora sp. and several undescribed Ascomycete species. An interesting result was obtained for the isolates UFMGCB 215 and UFMGCB 262, which were related to fungi associated with bryophytes present in boreal ecosystems. Some isolates showed low identity in the ITS sequences to sequences of fungal species deposited in GenBank, suggesting that these fungi could be new species. This work is the first report on fungal endophytes associated with leaves of the Antarctic grass D. antarctica.
ISSN:0722-4060
1432-2056
DOI:10.1007/s00300-008-0515-z