Cork oak endophytic fungi as potential biocontrol agents against biscogniauxia mediterranea and diplodia corticola

An increase in cork oak diseases caused by Biscogniauxia mediterranea and Diplodia corticola has been reported in the last decade. Due to the high socio-economic and ecologic importance of this plant species in the Mediterranean Basin, the search for preventive or treatment measures to control these diseases is an urgent need. Fungal endophytes were recovered from cork oak trees with different disease severity levels, using culture-dependent methods. The results showed a higher number of potential pathogens than beneficial fungi such as cork oak endophytes, even in healthy plants. The antagonist potential of a selection of eight cork oak fungal endophytes was tested against B. mediterranea and D. corticola by dual-plate assays. The tested endophytes were more efficient in inhibiting D. corticola than B. mediterranea growth, but Simplicillium aogashimaense, Fimetariella rabenhorstii, Chaetomium sp. and Alternaria alternata revealed a high potential to inhibit the growth of both. Simplicillium aogashimaense caused macroscopic and microscopic mycelial/hyphal deformations and presented promising results in controlling both phytopathogens’ growth in vitro. The evaluation of the antagonistic potential of non-volatile and volatile compounds also revealed that A. alternata compounds could be further explored for inhibiting both pathogens. These findings provide valuable knowledge that can be further explored in in vivo assays to find a suitable biocontrol agent for these cork oak diseases.This work was supported by FEDER funds through COMPETE (Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade) and by national funds by FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia) in the framework of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028635, as well as for financial support to BioISI (UIDB/04046/2020) and CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2020) by national funds by FCT/MCTES/PIDDAC. D. Costa thanks FCT for PhD grant SFRH/BD/120516/2016