Diversity of Foliar Endophytic Fungi of Invasive Plant Purpurstem Eupatorium(Eupatorium adenophorum)
Anexoticinvasiveplantusuallyhasmutualrelationwithlocalorganismsandtheywillaffectlocaleco-sys-tem. In order to show whether the foliar endophytic fungi( FEF)of purpurstem Eupatorium( PE)conduce to the in-vasion,the diversity of FEF of PE was investigated for the first time in this study. Fresh and healthy leaves of PE pop-ulations from Mt. Xishan and Golden Temple were collected in March and June,and a total of 312 fungal strains were isolated using routine MEA( malt-extract agar)and ONFIT( overnight freeze incubation technique). Based on the differences of ITS gene,these fungi were divided into 77 operational taxonomic units( OTUs),phylogenetically be-longing to the Class of Agaricomycetes,Dothideomycetes,Sordariomycetes,and Pezizomycetes. At lower taxonomy level,they were divided into 19 genera,and the dominant fungi include Alternaria sp.(25. 09%)and Colletotrichum sp.(10. 80%). There were 2. 09% strains belonging to unknown fungi. Relatively,higher diversity of endophytes from PE was found in June than those in March. The results showed that FEF in invasive PE was rich,whether these fungi has any influences on the invasion of PE is worth to study deeper in the future.