Abstract
Jatropha curcas is an important crop grown in the plantations of the University of Ilorin for research and commercialization. J. curcas has been reported to have high tolerance for stress, pests and diseases. Different parts of Jatropha are utilised for various uses both domestically and medicinally, thus, this study was carried out to unravel the dominant endophytic fungi associated with green leaves of J. curcas in the said plantation. The dominant fungi were isolated and characterized using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal DNA. Green leaves of J. curcas were collected and processed for isolation of endophytic fungi using water agar. The putative endophytic fungi from J. curcas were identified using morphological and molecular methods as Curvularia geniculata and Phyllosticta capitalensis. The results of this study will be an addition to the fungal endophytes identified on J. curcas and a potential source of secondary metabolite production. This study constitutes, to the authors’ knowledge, the first report of C. geniculata and P. capitalensis as endophytes in J. curcas leaves, in Nigeria.
Highlights
The plant Jatropha curcas L. is a medium, deciduous multipurpose tree in the family Euphorbiaceae
Fungal endophytes previously reported from J. curcas includes Colletotrichum truncatum, Nigrospora oryzae, Fusarium proliferatum, Guignardia cammillae, Alternaria destruens, Chaetomium sp. (Kumar & Kaushik, 2013), Fusarium spp., Phoma spp., Colletotrichum sp. (Ikhatua & Dikoru, 2016), Curvularia geniculata, Lasidiplodia theobromae, Trichoderma harzianum, Mucor sp., Penicillium sp. (Stephen et al, 2017), Curvularia, Colletotrichum (Nasiru et al, 2015), and Fusarium sp. (Zarafi & AbdulKadir, 2013)
Healthy green leaves were collected from seven year old plants of J. curcas grown within the plantations of University of Ilorin (Unilorin), (80°27’48.0′′N 40°38’57.11′′ E), Nigeria
Summary
The plant Jatropha curcas L. is a medium, deciduous multipurpose tree in the family Euphorbiaceae. J. curcas is a drought resistant, perennial and highly stress adaptable plant that can grow well in marginal and poor soils (Jongschaap et al, 2007). Fungal endophytes have been identified from seeds (Ikhatua & Dikoru, 2016) and leaves of J. curcas using morphological and molecular techniques (Kumar & Kaushik, 2013). The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the nuclear ribosomal DNA were used by Kumar and Kaushik (2013) to identify endophytes from J. curcas in India. This technique provides more accurate identification over the morphological methods of fungal identification.
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