The Occurrence of Fungi in The Ectorizosphere-Rhizoplane Zone Of Some Selected Macrophytes From The Nile Delta Of Egypt.

The Occurrence of Microfungi in the Ectorhizosphere-rhizoplane zone of Some Selected Macrophytes from the Nile Delta of Egypt.

 EL-Sayed M. EL-Morsy, Mamdouh S. Serag,  Jehan A.T. Zahran and Ibrhaim G. Rashed^*

Botany Department, Damietta Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, New Damietta,PO. Box. 34517-30 Egypt.

e-mail el_morsy@mum.mans.eun.eg

* Department of Physical & Mathematical Science, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.

ABSTRACT

Five plant species namely; Pistia stratiotes, Ludwigia stolonifera, Echinochloa stagnina, Nymphyea lotus and Phragmites australis were collected from water courses in Damietta and surveyed for rhizosphere fungi. Czapek`s-Dox -agar, xylan-agar, galic acid agar and cellulose agar were used as isolation media. A sum of sixty-five terrestrial species were isolated and identified. They are primarily Mitosporic (48 species), Ascomycota (9) Zygomycota (6), Basidiomycota (1) and unidentified yeast sp. Trichoderma koningii (100%) of the samples, Aspergillus niger (90%), A. flavus (90%) and A. terreus (60%) were the most frequent species. Highest counts of these Aspergilli were recorded on gallic acid-agar whereas for Tr. koningii appear on xylan-agar. The rhizospheres of aquatic plants of site I captivate highest count.This count is mainly represented by A. niger and A. flavus. Conversely, the lowest count was found in site III. Conceivably, worst water quality in particular low oxygen level in site III seem to be effective in reducing this count. In CCA biplot the patterns of abundance of frequent fungi in the rhizosphere were somewhat influenced by changes in water variables. On the contrary, very frequent species were unaffected by changes in water variables.