Diversity and Biological Activities of Endophytic Fungi at Al-Qassim Region

In recent year’s endophytic fungi has become a major concern on their host plants by enhancing their growth, increasing their fitness, strengthening their tolerances to abiotic and biotic stresses, and promoting their accumulation of secondary metabolites. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a wide range of flora which may be a rich source of endophytic fungi so that, the present study involves diversity and bioactivity of the endophytic fungal community in Al-Qassim region from 15 wild plants 162 isolates were obtained and identified. Among them, the most common isolates were Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus ochraceous and Trichoderma viride, these four endophytic isolates were examined for its antagonistic effect against six phytopathogenic fungi using two different assays, Dual-culture and Culture filtrate. Trichoderma viride recorded the most significant growth inhibition of almost pathogenic fungi followed by the three endophytic Aspergillus spp. In addition, these four endophytic fungi were screened for the production of some extracellular enzymes such as protease, cellulose, amylase, pectinase and xylanase. Our results show the ability of these isolates to produce these extracellular enzymes so this indicated the possible role of endophytic fungi as a biocontrol agent of plant disease.