یک گیاه میزبان جدید برای Epicoccum dendrobii و Chaetomium olivaceum

The “Shadegan International Wetland”is located in the southwest of Iran, south of the Khuzestan Plain and between the cities of Shadgan, Abadan and Mahshahr. The vegetation is the most important part of this wetland ecosystem and consists of mostly grasses and shrubs that grow in saturated soil. Among them, the mangrove grass (Aeluropus lagopoides (L) Trin ex Thw.), belonging to the family Poaceae, is a salt-tolerant plant growing in the edge of salt marshes and sulfur springs, as well as in barren lands. During our isolating and identifying of the endophytic fungi growing within mangrove grass, four strains of Chaetomium and Epicoccum were obtained in 2023. Asymptomatic samples of healthy branches and leaves were collected and washed with running tap water for 2 min, followed by fragmenting in small pieces (average length of 8 mm). The plant pieces were surface-disinfected with 70% ethanol for 1 min and 1% sodium hypochlorite solution for 1-2 min, followed by rinsing three times with sterile distilled water for 1 min. Samples were placed on Potato-Dextrose-Agar (PDA) medium supplemented with streptomycin sulfate (30 mgL−1) and incubated at 25 ºC for 7-14 days. The emerged colonies of Chaetomium and Epicoccum isolates were purified by hyphal tip method. Growth and morphological features were determined on PDA. The partial regions of beta-tubulin (tub2) were amplified using appropriate primers and sequenced. The isolates were molecularly compared with known strains using BLASTn search algorithm and phylogenetic analyses. According to morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses, the above isolates were identified as follow: C. olivaceum and E. dendrobii. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first record of these fungi within Aeluropus lagopoides worldwide.