| Summary: | Mangrove health is very important for the ecosystem to survive the challenges and threats due to climate change and
anthropogenic pressures. However, unhealthy mangroves due to pathogenic fungi causing diseases may demote the survival
rate of younger plants to grow and information on the status of foliar disease incidence is limited. This study aimed 1) to
observe the foliar disease symptoms that occurred on Rhizophora apiculata and Avicennia marina and 2) to identify the
fungi isolated from the symptomatic leaves. Samples were collected from the mangrove area located in Universiti Malaysia
Terengganu (UMT) campus, along the South China Sea. All isolates were identified based on their morphological characteristics.
A total of five foliar disease symptoms were observed namely black leaf spot, grey leaf spot, leaf rot, sunken leaf blight, and
anthracnose. Rhizophora apiculata has a greater number of leaf spots than A. marina. Four genera of fungi; Pestalotiopsis
sp., Curvularia sp., Colletotrichum sp. and Rhizopus sp. were successfully isolated from symptomatic leaves where the most
dominant was Pestalotiopsis sp. to both mangrove species. This finding g highlights the need to obtain the status of foliar
diseases and their impact on the resilience of mangroves in Malaysia.
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