CENTENNIAL HONORS COLLEGE
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2016
PosterPresentation
IsolationandIdentificationofDarkSeptateEndophytesintheRootsofAridGrassSpecies
TaylorBurgess
FacultyMentor:AndreaPorras-Alfaro
Biology
Many plant species face new threats as climate models continue to predict variation in precipitation,
rising temperatures, and severe weather. However, research has shown that there are fungi that
colonizetherootsofmanygrassspecies.Thesefungiareknownasdarkseptateendophytesandhave
beenfoundtobenefittheirhostbypromotinggrowthaswellastheabilitytoalleviatephysicalstress
throughheatanddroughttolerance.Theidentificationandcharacterizationofdarkseptateendophytes
will increase the necessary knowledge for the protection of grasslands that provide essential water
resources,wildlifehabitats,andorganiccarbonsources.Themainobjectiveofthecurrentprojectwas
toconductDNAextractionandamplificationfortheidentificationofthedarkseptateendophytesusing
sequencingtechniques.Inordertostudythedarkseptateendophytes,eighthundredculturesoffungi
wereisolatedfromtherootsofaridgrassspeciesusingsteriletechniques.Thesampleswereobserved
inordertoprovidedescriptionsoftheirstructure.DNAsampleswereextractedandamplifiedinorder
tostudyspecificregionsfortheclassificationofthefungi.Sequenceswerecleanedandcomparedusing
NCBI BLAST. The most abundant phylum was Ascomycota for 73% of the samples and unclassified
species of dark septate endophytes accounted for 21% of the samples. Further tests will identify the
remainingdarkseptateendophytesthathavebeenextractedfromtheisolates.