Community, Diversity, and Distribution Pattern of Culturable Endophytic Fungi Isolated from Polygonatum Cyrtonema

OBJECTIVE  To isolate culturable endophytic fungi from Polygonatum cyrtonema and analyze their community, diversity, and distribution pattern.

METHODS  Several healthy P. cyrtonema individuals were collected and divided into 4 parts, including root, stem, leaf, and rhizome. Culturable endophytic fungi were isolated from these parts using traditional isolation techniques. ITS sequence was used to identify the fungal isolates, and their fungal community and diversity were analyzed.

RESULTS  A total of 184 endophytic fungal strains were isolated and divided into 45 taxons, belonging to 1 phylum, 2 classes, 6 orders, 9 families, and 10 genera. There were tissue differences and specificities in the distribution of endophytic fungi. Among them, Trichoderma topped the dominant genera of those isolated from roots, stems, and leaves, while Clonostachys was only isolated from rhizome. Shannon-Wiener diversity (H’) and Simpson diversity (1-D) analysis showed that root had the highest diversity index, followed by stem, leaf, and rhizome. There was the highest similarity between root and stem with the Cs index was 0.6885.

CONCLUSIONS  There are abundant endophytic fungi in various P. cyrtonema tissues. The paper provided candidate strain for the endophytic fungal biological control, and the basic data for the development and utilization of endophytic fungi resources in P. cyrtonema.