ISOLATION OF ENDOPHYTIC FUNGI FROM TEMPERATURE TOLERANT PLANTS AND EVALUATION OF THEIR ABILITY TO CONFER TEMPERATURE TOLERANCE
Loading...
Date
2016-07-25
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES GKVK, BENGALURU
Abstract
Among abiotic stresses, high temperature stress has become a subject of global
concern, as it affects the growth and productivity of crop plants. The average
temperature within the Indian sub-continent has risen by 0.57°C in the last 100 years
and models project that it is likely to rise further to a maximum of 2.5°C by 2050. An
emerging approach to mitigate the effect of high temperature is the use of endophytic
fungi. Endophytes are “symptom less” microorganisms, associated within plants
throughout their life cycle which has been shown to provide the latter, growth benefits,
often referred to as “habitat-adapted symbiosis”. In this study, endophytes from plant
adpated to extreme aridity, such as in Thar desert, were isolated and evaluated for their
ability to tolerate high temperatures and impart such tolerance to plants not adapted to
high temperature stress. Ten plant species from Thar desert and five from AFRI nursery,
Rajasthan, were collected and processed for endophytic fungi isolation. In total, 507
isolates belonging to 82 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU’s) were obtained.
Aspergillus flavus predominated followed by Aspergillus niger, Cheatomia sp. and
Curvularia sp. Nine OTU’s were found to be high temperature tolerant (retained their
ability to grow even at 45°C). However, inoculation of these endophytes to model plant
system such as rice, finger millet and green gram did not impart high temperature
tolerance. The fungal resources developed in the study paves way to explore potential
genes for high temperature tolerance that might be residing in the high temeprature
tolerant endophytes.
Description
Keywords
null