Evaluation of the macrofungal community at Los Amigos Biological Station, Madre de Dios, Perú
2007
Thesis
106
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, USA
Los Amigos;inventories;fungi
Macrofungi represents a diverse group of taxa which play an important role in nutrient cycling. Little is known about their diversity, community organization, variation in time and space, and their role within the ecosystem. This study was designed to evaluate the diversity, composition, and ecological importance of macromycetes belonging to the Basidiomycota and Ascomycota. The project was conducted at a lowland Amazonian rainforest area in the southeastern region of Peru, within the Amazon basin in the Madre de Dios province. The study was divided into two main parts: (1) an inventory involving opportunistic collections made to document the species present, and (2) a quantitative comparison between the three major habitats of the region, primary high-terrace forest, secondary high-terrace forest, and primary floodplain forest, using a system of plots that were sampled during the different seasons. This is the first study to evaluate the macrofungal communities of a lowland Amazonian forest in Peru. Three hundred and five morphospecies were collected from Los Amigos Biological Station (Peruvian Amazon lowland subtropical rainforest) indicating a high diversity. The fungal family composition found in the area was typical of Neotropical areas and similar to the ones found in the lowland regions of Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador. Forty eight species are presented as new records for the country. Similarity indexes showed that the species composition varied among habitats; however all of them were mainly composed of three families: Tricholomataceae, Polyporaceae, and Xylariaceae. The amount of precipitation influenced the macromycetes abundance and community composition. The outcome from this study will be stored as a mycological database that will be available to mycologists who plan to do research in this region. Also, the species documented will increase our knowledge of biodiversity held in this region of the world.