Diversity of endolichenic fungi within lichen genus Parmotrema from India.

The lichens serve as an ecological niche for a group of unexplored fungal species residing inside their thallus without causing any noticeable symptoms and such fungi are termed as endolichenic fungi. The objective of the current study is to check the endolichenic fungal diversity within lichen genus Parmotrema. The study resulted in a total of 450 endolichenic fungi (ELF) isolates from 15 species of Parmotrema. Out of these, 73 sporulating isolates were identified using ITS sequences which resulted in 47 species under 23 genera. The phylogenetic assemblage of the fungi comprised Sordariomycetes (84.50%), Dothideomycetes (5.63%), Eurotiomycetes (7.04%), Pezizomycetes (1.40%), and Agaricomycetes (1.40%). Daldinia eschscholtzii, Xylaria feejeensis, Nemania diffusa, Annulohypoxylon truncatum, and Nigrospora sphaerica were frequently occurring isolates inhabiting at least five different species of Parmotrema. Furthermore, Daldinia eschscholtzii and Nemania diffusa were found to be with maximum colonization rate of 1.55% and relative frequency of 0.148. Sorenson's similarity coefficient was found to be highest between P. hababianum and P. nilgherrense with 0.36. The study encountered fungal taxa such as Annulohypoxylon truncatum, Coprinellus radians, Cladorrhinum sp., Plectania rhytidia, Fimetariella rabenhorstii, and Liangia sinensis earlier not reported as endolichenic fungi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]