Abstract

Fungi are potential profounding cause of aeroallergens which are creating a appalling scenario culminating into various fatal diseases to man, livestock and plant biodiversity such asperglosis, mycosis and as smut and rust, respectively. In the present study, air-borne mycoflora of Baghsar Fort Samahni (BFS) and its allied forest (Azad Kashmir, Pakistan) was spatially and temporally analyzed. Spores were collected from five different sampling sites (S.1 S.2, S.3, S.4, S.5) by air-trapper and grown on two different culture media viz. potato dextrose agar (PDA) and water agar (WA), and isolated by using culture plate technique (CPT). A total of seven different fungal species of six genera namelyAspergillus niger, Alternaria solani, Cladosporium sp., Fusarium sp., Penicillium sp. andCurvularia sp. were isolated and identified. On PDA medium, Cladosporium sp. was found to be the most abundant (21.3%) fungal species followed by A. niger (17.8%), A. solani (15.4%), Alternaria alternata (14.9%), Fusarium sp.  (13.3%), Penicillium sp. (9.0%) and Curvularia sp. (8.3%). In other WA medium, Cladosporium sp. was again dominating and most prevalent (23.2%), and other species occurrence was as: A. niger (19.2%), A. solani (18.1%), A. alternata (14.1%), Fusarium sp. (11.3%), Curvularia sp. (8.5%) andPenicillium sp. (5.6%). PDA proved a better medium for capturing and perpetuation of fungi. High incidence of Cladosporium spp. is a major cause of fruit rots and immature seed falling and ultimately leads to economic loss to the area.

Key words: Air-borne, Mycoflora, Baghsar Fort, Potato Dextrose Media (PDA), Samahni,Cladosprorium