ENDOPHYTIC FUNGI AND FOLIAR EPIPHYTES OF Peganum harmala L. (ZYGOPHYLLACEAE) OF DAYATE AIAT (LAGHOUAT, ALGERIA)

Abstract

Whether epiphytes or endophytes, fungi live in complex interaction with the plants where both partners benefit. Our study was carried out on a spontaneous medicinal plant of the region Laghouat (Algeria): Peganum harmala. Our interest in this work has focused on the diversity of mycoendophytes and epiphytes in the leaves of this species. Ten healthy subjects were harvested in April 2015 at random. For the epiphytes, leaf suspensions were seeded on PDA and incubated at room temperature. As for mycoendophytes, surface sterilization of leaves was performed to remove epiphytic organisms that remain at the phylloplane. The fragments are seeded on PDA medium and incubated at room temperature. The microscopic identification revealed that the phyllosphere fungi of Peganum harmala belonged much more to the phylum Ascomycota. The genera listed indicate an abundance of the genus Penicillium and Rhizopus for the epiphytes, Cladosporium and Alternaria for mycoendophytes. This diversity is estimated by the global Shannon index with 1.78 for the epiphytes and 1.08 for the foliar endophytic fungi of this plant. Moreover, the overall ratio of similarity Sorensen is 0.62 between the fungal communities epiphytic and endophytic of these leaves. Significant interactions are described between different fungal taxa through a correlation matrix indicating the impact of these interactions on fungal biodiversity in leaves of Peganum harmala.