Profundae diversitas: the uncharted genetic diversity in a newly studied group of fungal root endophytes

摘要: Endophytes associated with crops have potential as beneficial inoculants in agriculture, but little is known about their genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships. We carried out the first ever ecological survey of culturable fungal root endophytes a wild barley species. Fungal were isolated from 10 populations wall (Hordeum murinum), 112 taxa fungi identified based on internal transcribed spacer sequence similarity. found representatives 8 orders, 12 families 18 genera. Within this group, only 34 isolates (30% total) could be confidently assigned to species, 23 (21% had no significant match anything deposited GenBank (based <85% similarity). These results suggest high proportion novel fungi, 28% not order. This includes three that been shown significantly improve agronomic traits cultivated barley. study has, therefore, revealed profound single relative Extrapolating this, highlights largely unknown, hugely diverse potentially useful resource crop endophytes.