Rhizospheric Fungal Diversity Associated with Meyna spinosa Roxb.: A Threatened and Ethno-Medicinally Important Plant of North-East India

Meyna spinosa Roxb. belongs to Rubiaceae, is one of the threatened and ethno
medicinally important plant in North-East India, a part of Indo-Burma mega
biodiversity hotspot. The plant is known for its pharmaceutical importance since it
is used in the treatment of several human diseases such as hepatic disorders, gastro
intestinal problems, severe skin infections, diabetes etc. The plant is also important
since it acts as refrigerant and abortifacient. In the present investigation, the
rhizosphere of the test plant was screened for putative fungal associations using
serial dilution plate method and 105 dilutions. Qualitative analysis revealed the
predominance of nine fungal species belonging to eight different genera namely
Aspergillus, Cunninghamella, Geotrichum, Mortierella, Mucor, Penicillium,
Pythium and Trichoderma throughout the study locations. Trichoderma (50%) was
recorded as the dominant fungal genera followed by Mucor (37.5%) and
Cunninghmella (33.34%) respectively. The Shanon-Weiner and Simpson diversity
indices for fungal isolates were high (1.979 and 0.847 respectively) at rhizospheric
soil of M. spinosa collected from sampling point, JRT/NMT/MS-02. Significant
variations in fungal species richness (3.0-16.6) throughout the study locations were
also observed.