NAMC – Newsletter of the Asian Mycological Committee

Indian Mycology (2010-2011)
Fungal research is being carried out in several universities and research institutions in India,
each group having established its own special niche.
Damodar Shenoy at the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, is interested in
phylogeny and molecular diversity of plant pathogenic fungi and DNA barcoding of fungi. G.S.
Prasad at the same institute works on the phylogeny and molecular diversity of yeasts. He has
described several new species of yeasts from India.
Shenoy BD, Jeewon R, Wang HK, Amandeep K, Ho WH, Bhat DJ, Crous PW, Hyde KD. 2010.
Sequence data reveals phylogenetic affinities of fungal anamorphs Bahusutrabeeja,
Diplococcium, Natarajania, Paliphora, Polyschema, Rattania and Spadicoides. Fungal
Diversity 44: 161–169.
Daniel HM, Prasad GS. 2010. The role of culture collections as an interface between providers
and users: the example of yeasts. Res Microbiol. 161(6):488-96.
Extensive research on endophytic fungi of forest trees, algae and mangroves is being carried
out by T.S. Suryanarayana and his team at the Vivekananda Institute of Tropical Mycology. He
has recently described heat-resistant, ‘agni’ fungi from the forests of Western Ghats, whose
spores survive exposure to 100-115 o C. D.J. Bhat and his students have carried out enormous
work on diversity of fungi in various habitats in Goa and have described several new species
and reported new records of fungi from India.
Suryanarayanan TS, Govinda Rajulu MB, Thirumalai E, Reddy MS and Money NP. 2011. Agni’s
fungi: heat-resistant spores from the Western Ghats, southern India. Fungal Biology
Reviews 115: 833-838.
Thirunavukkarasu N, Suryanarayanan TS, Murali TS. Ravishankar JP, Gummadi SN. 2011. L-
asparaginase from marine derived fungal endophytes of seaweeds. Mycosphere 2:147–
155.