ANTAGONISTIC ACTIVITY OF WOOD-INHABITING XYLARIA SPECIES AGAINST OTHER FUNGI IN DUAL CULTURE EXPERIMENTS

In this survey, two wood‑inhabiting species – Xylaria polymorpha and Xylaria longipes (10 strains each) were evaluated in dual culture assay against 6 fungi: Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans, Fusarium solani, Mucor plumbeus, Penicillium polonicum, and Trichoderma viride. Detailed descriptions of the interspecific interactions, morphological changes and comparison of X. longipes and X polymorpha reaction types with each fungus are provided. The results indicate significant inhibitory activity of both X. longipes and X. polymorpha against A. niger, M. plumbeus, P. polonicum, F. solani, C. albicans with differences in reaction types on a strain specific level. Most commonly, co‑cultivating resulted in Xylaria species replacing fungi (60.8% of all interactions), with a partial replacement after initial deadlock with mycelial contact as the most frequent type of interaction. Inhibiting activity at a distance occurred in the majority of dual cultures of X. polymorpha with A. niger and P. polonicum (deadlock at a distance), and X. longipes with M. plumbeus (deadlock at a distance followed by a partial replacement). Among all tested cultures, T. viride turned out to be the only fungus suppressing Xylaria (except for X. polymorpha strains that formed a deadlock at mycelial contact). Based on the listed reaction types, for each studied Xylaria strain antagonism index was calculated, revealing that X polymorpha IBK 2720 had the highest value among all screened strains amounted to 20. The results indicate the effectiveness of Xylaria against tested fungi via contact antagonism and provide valuable insights for further investigations of novel biocontrol agents.