Figure 1.

Phylogenetic placement of fungal endophytes. Neighbor-Joining phylogeny of ascomycetes closely related to the four fungal endophytes (A-D). Cloned sequences are shown in purple and the best BLAST hit is shown in blue. The monophyletic clade of the genus Monosporascus is indicated by the blue dot (D). The trees are rooted with Leotia lubrica (A), Ascochyta hordei var. hordei (B), Dothidea hippophaeos (C) and Valsaria ceratoniae (D). Only bootstrap values >50 are shown. The bar below the phylogeny indicates the distance measure for the branches. (E) Pictures of the four fungal endophytes on plates, as well as close-ups of the mycelial growth on plates, microscopic pictures of hyphal growth in culture and in roots of S. lycopersicum. The cultures of Pho. eupatorii show pycnidia (black arrows) as well as chlamydospores (purple arrow) and pycnidiospores (grey arrow). Note the primarily intercellular growth of Pho. eupatrii in planta (black arrows), which may contribute to its asymptomatic root colonization of S. lycopersicum. Phi. fortinii, in contrast, colonized both inter- and intracellularly, as was observed for this isolate in other hosts (black arrow). Scale bars are given in the corner of each photograph.