The Biological Diversity and Production of Volatile Organic Compounds by Stem-Inhabiting Endophytic Fungi of Ecuador

What is it about?

The manuscript describes the diversity of over 1500 fungal endophyte isolates, collected by over 125 undergraduate students in seven years, from three Ecuadorian ecosystems: lowland tropical forest, cloud forest, and coastal dry forest. We sought to determine whether Ecuador’s fungal endophytes are hyperdiverse, and whether that biological diversity is reflected in the endophytes’ chemical diversity. This study yielded a total of 1526 fungal ITS sequences comprising some 315 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), resulting in a non-asymptotic OTU accumulation curve and characterized by a Fisher’s alpha of 120 and a Shannon Diversity score of 7.56. These figures suggest that the Ecuadorian endophytes are hyperdiverse. Furthermore, the 113 isolates screened for volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, produced more than 140 unique compounds, illustrating the potential for these diverse organisms to produce a plethora of natural products.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Endophytes remain an underexplored component of microbial biodiversity, whose investigation could easily double current estimates of worldwide fungal richness. Fungal endophytes produce a wide variety of potentially useful natural products. Work exploring patterns in endophytic biodiversity suggests that New World endophytic fungi increase in diversity with decreasing latitude. Here, we investigate biodiversity of fungal endophytes in a single hyperdiverse, neotropical country.

Perspectives