Identification and distribution of endophytic fungi associated with the stem and bark of old and young plane trees (Platanus orientalis L.) in the urban landscape

Microorganisms associated with healthy plant tissues that endure for some or all of their life cycle without causing the host to exhibit disease symptoms are endophytes. One of Iran's most popular ornamental plants is the plane tree (Platanus orientalis L.), which can live up to 1000 years. We looked for fungal endophytes in the sapwood and bark of young and old plane trees in three cities in central Iran: Mahallat, Natanz, and Isfahan. According to a gridded sampling strategy, samples were taken from young (less than 100 years old) and old (200-1000 years old) trees that were randomly selected as replications. The findings showed that Mahallat had a higher density of fungal endophytes. Mahallat, which has higher rainfall and a lower yearly temperature, had the largest species richness, according to the Shannon-Wiener diversity index. Over all sites, older trees considerably outperformed younger ones in terms of endophyte frequency and the Shannon-Wiener diversity index. Our findings also imply that the tissue type has a discernible impact on the frequency of fungal endophytes and species diversity; higher isolate frequency was observed in bark tissue, but higher species diversity was discovered in stems. According to the identification of endophytic fungi based on morphology and rDNA (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) sequences, the most prevalent fungal endophytes were Penicillium sp., Fusarium sp., Alternaria sp., and Ulocladium sp.