Incidence of Air-Borne Mycoflora of Baghsar Fort and its Allied Areas from Samahni Valley District Bhimber Azad Kashmir, Pakistan

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
namely Aspergillus niger, Alternaria solani, Cladosporium sp., Fusarium sp., Penicillium sp. and
Curvularia 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%) and Penicillium 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.