Résumé
To date, there was no information available on thediversity and molecular characterization of fungi associatedwith oil palm decay. This study appeared as a response tothat need for essential information on the overall, globalbiodiversity of fungi associated with oil palm decay. In thisstudy, 5 isolates from 30 fresh samples from the Tanah-Gambus estates (infested fresh tissues and fruiting bodies)seemed to be Ganoderma boninense. In general, the strainsisolated belonged to the class of the Ascomycetes and ofthe Mucorales. Some of these strains had a very fast growthrate (48h), making them highly invasive, such as the generaTrichoderma or Fusarium. The PDA-Chloramphenicolmedium seemed to be the most appropriate. Adaptation ofthe protocol developed in this study enabled us to extractDNA from all our samples using just 40 mg of mycelium ofGanoderma fruiting bodies and of fresh oil palm tissues. Todate, the sequencing result for 250 samples gives a singlespecies name and very high BLAST performance criteria (evalue,% coverage) for the best 10 results. After BLAST, weobtained 17% the genus Ganoderma, 41% of Ascomycetes,yeasts and other Basidiomycetes, 17% miscellaneous(plants etc.) and 25% of unusable sequences. An initialanalysis of the interspecific phylogenetic relations ofGanoderma, based on a comparison of rDNA sequences,5.8S and ITS 2, revealed clearly distinct clades where thespecies tended to group according to the nature of thesample and the geographical origin, particularly the speciesfrom Benin and Indonesia, and the freeze-dried samplesfrom Indonesia.