Evolutionary Relationship and the Sequence Similarities among Different Fungal Species Infecting Birds Captured from Different Areas in Denmark

Fungal diseases are the common cause of death in wild animals and birds of prey. This study was designed to investigate the development of fungal infections among wild birds in Denmark. In this study, fungal samples were isolated from such sources as Barn swallows' feathers, White stork, and birds of prey. The fungal species were isolated by direct culture of feathers on SD Agar with chloramphenicol and incubated at 28±2ºC. The fungal genomic DNA was isolated from each species, PCR reaction was performed, and the resulting fragments of the 18S rRNA DNA were sequenced and used for identification. A comparison between the resulting fragments was made to find out the percentage of similarity among the different fungal species. The multiple sequence alignment showed percentages of similarities ranging from 39% to 99%. To sum up, the 18S rRNA DNA sequence has been evolved dramatically even within the same species, while still conserved in others. It is a useful tool to be used for the identification of fungal species as it reduces time. Moreover, according to the results, there were no comprehensive high homology percentages among the species infecting the same bird.