Document type
Journal articles
Document subtype
Full paper
Title
Potential roles of marine fungi in the decomposition process of standing stems and leaves of Spartina maritima
Participants in the publication
Maria da Luz Calado (Author)
Luís Carvalho (Author)
Margarida Barata (Author)
Dep. Biologia Vegetal
cE3c
Ka-Lai Pang (Author)
Summary
Fungal communities inhabiting live, senescent, and decaying leaf sheaths, stems, and leaf blades of standing plants of Spartina maritima in two Portuguese salt marshes were assessed by morphological identification of fruiting structures and sequence-based identification based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-cloning analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA. The molecular method enabled identification of infrequent ascomycetes and basidiomycetes (filamentous and yeasts) and the asexual morph of Byssothecium obiones and Phaeosphaeria halima. The occurrence and ecological role of the most frequent fungi on different S. maritima substrates seem to depend on the phase of plant life cycle, and specifically on the availability and microenvironmental conditions of each plant substrate. Specifically, By. obiones, Natantispora retorquens, and Lulworthia sp. 1 were involved in the decay of lower-middle culms, Buergenerula spartinae of middle culms and leaves, P. halima, Phaeosphaeria spartinicola, and Stagonospora sp. 1 of middle-upper leaves, and Mycosphaerella sp. I of upper leaves of early-decaying S. maritima plants. The presence of these fungi on live vegetative structures suggests that they might begin the colonization process as endophytes, gaining a competitive advantage over the other saprobic fungi on the plants.\\\\n
Editor(s)
Taylor & Francis
Date of Submisson/Request
2017-11-20
Date of Acceptance
2019-01-14
Date of Publication
2019-05-16
Institution
FACULDADE DE CIÊNCIAS DA UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA
Where published
Mycologia
Publication Identifiers
ISSN - 0027-5514
Address
United Kingdom
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Number of pages
12
Starting page
371
Last page
383
Document Identifiers
DOI -
https://doi.org/10.1080/00275514.2019.1571380
Rankings
FCUL CC Recognition -
SCIMAGO Q1 (2019) - 0,915 - Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Keywords
Early stages of decay
ITS rDNA libraries
leaf blades
leaf sheaths
potential ecological roles
stems