Diversity of Endophytic Fungi Associated with Fruits and Leaves of Tamarind (Tamarindus indica L.) Based on Its Ribosomal DNA Sequences

Plant-associated microbes are among essential natural resources that abundantly exist in a natural environment, such as endophyuc fungi. Studies on endophytic fungi in medicinal plants have allowed the discovery of numerous fungi species and their hidden potentials. Therefore, this study focused on the isolation and identification of endophyuc fungi from several plant parts of tamarind (T. indica), such as leaves and fruits. A total of 69 fungal cultures were successfully isolated and identified into 31 distinct species from 15 genera based on morphological characteristics and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis using a Maximum Likelihood method. A high diversity of endophytic fungi associated with T. indica were observed by ShannonWiener index H' (3.083). There were six different species obtained from the genus Colletotrichzlm (C. aenigma, C. brevisporum, C. cobbittiense, C. fmcticola, C. gloeosporiaides and C. siamense), and Diaporthe (D. arecae, D. ceratoxamiae, D. phaseolorzrm, D. pseudomangzjirae, D. pseudooctlii and D. pseudophoenicicala), four species of Aspergilzlzls (A. aczlleatzrs, A. carbonarizls, A.flautls and A. tzlbingensis), two species of Czlrvzrlank/Cochliobolzrs (C. geniculatzrs and C. lunata) and lV&rospora (N. lacticolonia and N. oryxae), two species of Lasiod$lodia (L. psetldotheobromae and L theobmmae) and Penicillm (P. m@ii and P. verruczllos~m). Other fungal species that were also identified are Botyosphaeria mamane, Fusaritlm solani, Tmncospora tephropora, Ph_yllostictafallopiae, Sarcostroma bisettllatnm, Tiichodema asperelhm and Xylarid j2ejeensi.r.