Rhizospheric Fungal Diversity Associated with Meyna spinosa Roxb.: A Threatened and Ethno-Medicinally Important Plant of North-East India
Description
Meyna spinosa Roxb. belongs to Rubiaceae, is one of the threatened and ethno medicinally important plant in North-East India, a part of Indo-Burma mega biodiversity hotspot. The plant is known for its pharmaceutical importance since it is used in the treatment of several human diseases such as hepatic disorders, gastro intestinal problems, severe skin infections, diabetes etc. The plant is also important since it acts as refrigerant and abortifacient. In the present investigation, the rhizosphere of the test plant was screened for putative fungal associations using serial dilution plate method and 105 dilutions. Qualitative analysis revealed the predominance of nine fungal species belonging to eight different genera namely Aspergillus, Cunninghamella, Geotrichum, Mortierella, Mucor, Penicillium, Pythium and Trichoderma throughout the study locations. Trichoderma (50%) was recorded as the dominant fungal genera followed by Mucor (37.5%) and Cunninghmella (33.34%) respectively. The Shanon-Weiner and Simpson diversity indices for fungal isolates were high (1.979 and 0.847 respectively) at rhizospheric soil of M. spinosa collected from sampling point, JRT/NMT/MS-02. Significant variations in fungal species richness (3.0-16.6) throughout the study locations were also observed.