Morphological and molecular identification of fungi isolated from various habitat in Kirkuk city – Iraq

The aim of this study is isolate and identify fungi from different habitat in Kirkuk City - Iraq. The fungal species were isolated from soil and water in four season 2021-2022, collected the samples from various geographical habitat in Kirkuk City. The fungi isolation from soil and water done by inoculating (1ml) from serial dilutions on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) plates. The molecular identification of the isolated fungi at the species level, by PCR using specific internal transcribed spacer primer (ITS1/ITS4). The PCR products were sequenced and compared with the other related sequences in GenBank (NCBI). Seven fungal species were identified. The results showed that the (Aspergillus flavus 20.83%) was the most abundant fungus, while the (Penicillium citrinum 8.30%) was the less prevalent one in all resources and locations. The seven local fungal isolates were registered within NCBI, and this is the first record of these isolates in Iraq