Endophytic and endolichenic fungal diversity in maritime Antarctica based on cultured material and their evolutionary position among Dikarya.

Fungal endophytes comprise one of the most ubiquitous groups of plant symbionts. They live asymptomatically within vascular plants, bryophytes and also in close association with algal photobionts inside lichen thalli. While endophytic diversity in land plants has been well studied, their diversity in lichens and bryophytes are poorly understood. Here, we compare the endolichenic and endophytic fungal communities isolated from lichens and bryophytes in the Barton Peninsula, King George Island, Antarctica. A total of 93 fungal isolates were collected from lichens and bryophytes. In order to determine their identities and evolutionary relationships, DNA sequences of the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS), nuclear ribosomal small subunit (nuSSU), nuclear large subunit (nuLSU), and mitochondrial SSU (mtSSU) rDNA were obtained and protein coding markers of the two largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB1 and RPB2) were generated. Multilocus phylogenetic analyses revealed that most of the fungal isolates were distributed in the following six classes in the phylum Ascomycota: Dothideomycetes, Eurotiomycetes, Lecanoromycetes, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycetes and Sordariomycetes. For the first time we report the presence of subphylum Mortierellomycotina that may belong to an undescribed order in endophytic fungi. Taken together, our results imply that lichens and bryophytes provide similar niches and harbour a selection of these fungi, indicating generalists within the framework of evolutionary adaptation.