Indonesia is widely recognized as a major world center
for biodiversity because it has a wide range of natural
habitats, rich plant and animal resources and high
numbers of endemic species. Two distinct areas of the
Indonesian archipelago were selected for this study
namely, the Tesso Nilo region in the Province of Riau
(Island of Sumatra) and the island of Sumbawa in the
Province of Nusa Tenggara Barat. These areas are part of
two independent and important biodiversity hotspots and
were thus expected to harbour largely different populations
of higher plants. Tesso Nilo is part of the Sundaland
hotspot, which covers the western half of the Indo-
Malayan archipelago and is believed to have once been
connected with mainland Asia. Sumbawa, on the other
hand, belongs to the Wallacea biodiversity hotspot and is
part of the Australasian biogeographic realms. Because
the two regions have some resemblance to some parts the
forests of South America and Thailand or that of
Australia, they were expected to harbour novel Muscodor
spp. or relatives thereof.
From this study, we identified one endophyte that
resembled Muscodor spp. and produced VOC’s with
antibiotic activity. This organism has unique properties in
terms of its VOC’s, its biological activities and some unusual
structural features and each of these characteristics are
described in this report.