fungal biodiversity. brasil

Rice is a global staple food crop and Brazil the largest producer outside Asia. Several fungal diseases cause both yield and quality losses in the grain, including mycotoxigenic fusaria that infect and colonizes the grain. Fusarium fujikuroi species complex (FFSC) includes fungal species that cause bakanae disease in rice. The typical symptoms of bakanae are slender, chlorotic and elongated primary leaves that seem to be induced by the production of gibberellin by the pathogen (Ou, 1987; Amoah et al., 1995). This disease is a concern to rice production worldwide not only because of grain yield losses but also due to the fact that the species that causes the disease can be producer mycotoxins such as moniliformin, beauvericin, eniatins and fumonisins (Marasas et al., 2004). In Brazil, bakanae was firstly reported in 1970, and currently, there are no reports of this disease in the country (Amaral et al., 1970). Also, the symptoms of this disease were no longer observed in the field until 2013, when fumonisin B1 were reported in commercial rice grown in the State of São Paulo, suggesting that FFSC species could be associated to rice grains. Several members of Fusarium fujikuroi species complex have been isolated from rice grains in different parts of the world. Among the species we have reported F. anthophilum, F. fujikuroi, F. proliferatum and F. verticillioides (Carter et al., 2008; Amatuli et al., 2010; Hossain et al., 2016). …. (review about fumonisin and FUM cluster)…In lack of information about the diversity the species and toxigenic potential of tropical Fusarium fujikuroi species occurring in commercialized rice grains in Brazil, this study was designed to identify a diversity and mycotoxin production of a larger collection of strains from the FFSC, obtained from different producing regions of the country. The objectives this study were a) identify the FFSC species associated to rice grains; b) establish phylogenetic relationships among the species; c) detect the presence of FUM genes that are essential for fumonisin production; d) assess the fumonisin production capacity.