ENDOPHYTIC FUNGI OF EUCALYPTUS-GLOBULUS - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

Forty-one endophytic fungi were isolated from stem and leaves of young shoots of sprouting stumps and seedlings of Eucalyptus globulus. Plec tosphaera eucalypti was the main species colonizing seedlings, shoot s tems, mature leaves and to a lesser extent, xylem. Cytospora spp. and Microsphaeropsis sp. appeared confined to the xylem and Coniella minim a to seedling stems. Young and mature leaves also showed differences i n fungal colonizers: the former were essentially infected by C. minima and the latter by P. eucalypti and Harknessia hawaiiensis. A correspo ndence analysis performed on all taxa from stem samples has revealed t hree distinct clusters, corresponding to seedling, shoot xylem and com plete shoot stems, respectively. Percentages of minimal similarity ind exes among populations from xylem, complete sprouting stem and seedlin g stem were very low which also demonstrated tissue-specific differenc es in the composition of fungal endophyte populations. Several isolate s of basidiomycetes with positive oxidative extracellular enzymes were present in all three stem units. They also overgrew and replaced the more frequent endophytes under laboratory conditions.