PA-009 (JTK):

The diversity of endophytic fungi from coastal plants in Taiwan

Certain endophytic fungi assist their host plants to overcome stress. Since coastal vegetation is adapted to particular abiotic stress factors, endophytic fungi may play an important role in protecting coastal plants. There is few study about endophyte from coastal plants in Taiwan. Recently, the beach has been steadily degraded by the sea and human activity, endangering the coastal plants and their endophytes. Our aims are to contribute new data about endophytes from plants specific to sandy beaches and dunes, to study whether endophytes differ between two plants with different growth strategies in this habitat, Ipomoea pes-caprae and Vitex rotundifolia, and to compare endophyte diversity from natural beach and botanical garden in Ipomoea pes-caprae. We obtained over 1000 isolates from about 2000 plants segments comprising about 100 species. We identify these species by DNA sequences and microscopy and use the Shannon’s diversity index to compare the diversity of different sites and different hosts.

keywords:internal transcribed spacer,microfungi,Ascomycota,microscopy