Fusarium diversity from the Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Carla Steyn; Adriaana Jacobs; Brett Summerell; Eduard Venter

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1149853

Fusarium diversity from the Golden Gate Highlands National Park

Front Microbiol. 2023 Apr 13:14:1149853. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1149853. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Carla Steyn¹, Adriaana Jacobs^{1

2}, Brett Summerell^{1

3}, Eduard Venter¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
² ARC-Plant Health and Protection, Agricultural Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa.
³ Australian Institute of Botanical Science, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Members from the genus Fusarium can infect a broad range of plants and threaten agricultural and horticultural production. Studies on the diversity of Fusarium occurring in natural ecosystems have received less attention than the better known phytopathogenic members of the genus. This study identified Fusarium species from soils with low anthropogenic disturbance found in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park (GGHNP), a part of the Drakensberg system in South Africa. Selective techniques were implemented to obtain 257 individual isolates from the selected soil samples for which the translation elongation factor 1α (tef-1α) gene region was sequenced and compared against the Fusarium MLST and FUSARIUM-ID databases. Phylogenetic analyses, based on maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference, were used to determine species diversity in relation to reference isolates. Species level identifications were made within three of the seven species complexes and identified F. brachygibbosum, F. sporotrichioides, F. andiyazi, and F. gaditjirri based on the FUSARIUM-ID database, with F. transvaalense and F. lyarnte identified against the Fusarium MLST database. This indicated highly diverse populations of Fusarium from soils with low anthropogenic disturbance from the Afromontane grassland region found in mountain ranges.

Keywords: Afromontane; Fusarium diversity; grassland biome; low anthropogenic disturbance; natural ecosystems; species complex.

Grants and funding

This work was based on the research supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa, Thuthuka Program (TTK160530166659), Fusarium spp. Associated with Dominant Grass Species and Soils in the Grassland Biome of South Africa.