title: Fungal communities in herbaceous medicinal plants from the malnad region, southern India.
abstract: Fungal communities were isolated from surface sterilized leaf segments of nine ethnopharmaceutically important medicinal herbs collected from the Bhadra River Project Area, the Malnad region, Southern India. A total of 2159 isolates belonging to 55 different fungal species were isolated from 3600 leaf segments collected during the wet and dry seasons. Chaetomium globosum (7.3%), Aureobasidium pullulans (6.1%), Cladosporium cladosporioides (3.9%), Curvularia lunata (1.9%), Nigrospora oryzae (1.7%), Alternaria alternata (1.3%), Botryosphaeria subglobosa (1.1%), Phoma multirostrata (0.9%), Aspergillus niger (0.8%), Fusarium oxysporum (0.7%), Rhizoctonia solani (0.4%), and Sphaeropsis sapenea (0.3%) were the most frequently isolated fungal species. Colonization rates of fungal species varied significantly between the two seasons. Host specificity was observed in some host plants.
authors.affiliation: Department of P.G. Studies and Research in Applied Botany, Bio-Science Complex, Kuvempu University.
authors.forename: Yelugere L
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Krishnamurthy
authors.forename: Shankar B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Naik
authors.forename: Shashikala
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jayaram