Abstract
Endophytic fungi live inside plant tissues without triggering disease, and in many plant–fungus partnerships they help their hosts resist pathogens, herbivory and abiotic stress such as salinity or heavy-metal exposure. The common reed, Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud., is widespread across Libya’s coastal and wetland habitats, yet its endophytic mycobiota had never been examined. Leaf, rhizome and root tissue were sampled from five reed plants growing in the Al-Shaab area of Tripoli Sea Port, Tripoli, Libya, in June 2024, surface-sterilized, and cultured on chloramphenicol amended potato dextrose agar (PDA) to recover culturable fungi. Thirteen taxa were identified morphologically. Below ground tissues carried more taxa than leaves: thirteen were recovered from rhizomes and ten from roots, against eight from leaves. Six taxa (Acremoniumsp., Alternariasp., Aspergillus niger, Aspergillussp., and Cladosporiumsp., plus an unidentified yeast morphotype) turned up in all three tissue types, indicating that they represent the core endophytic community. ACochran’s Q test indicated no significant differences in taxon occurrence among the three compartments (Q = 5.43, df = 2, p = 0.066); pairwise similarity, measured with the Sørensen and Jaccard indices, was highest between rhizomes and roots and lowest between leaves and roots. This is the first record of the endophytic fungal community of P. australis from Libya, and it provides the first baseline dataset for future molecular identification and functional studies of reed-associated endophytic fungi in North African wetlands.