Functional variability of macrofungal populations in four different forest types of Costa Rica
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Date
2017-09Author
Rojas Alvarado, Carlos Alonso
Valverde González, Randall
Morales, Ricardo
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A series of functional variables, including biomass and hymenial area, were obtained for
more than 4800 individual macrofungal sporocarps and correlated with a set of ecological
parameters characterizing soil, climate and forest structure in four different forest types of Costa
Rica. The idea behind this project was to document macrofungi over a three-year period with the
objective of generating a dataset intended to document sporocarp variability and association with
forest characteristics. In the context of climate change, habitat degradation and tropical forest
fragmentation, studying fungi from an ecological perspective can provide crucial elements of
analysis to weigh their relevance in tropical systems and to understand the potential threats to
fungal populations. Our results showed high variability in the functional variables over the period
of study, but suggest that such variability is partially induced by macroclimatic events in which
forests with a higher percentage of mycorrhizal fungi seemed to be more sensitive. Overall, the
ratio of hymenial area/biomass and pileus diameter were found to be significantly correlated with
several ecological parameters in the studied forest types. However, the association of the former
with ecological reproductive strategies makes such variable a good parameter to use for the
monitoring of fungal dynamics in the studied tropical forests. The potential application of the latter
in the framework of climate change and forest degradation studies is relevant since fungi are
essential organisms in tropical ecosystems.
External link to the item
10.5943/mycosphere/8/9/3Collections
- Ingeniería agrícola [82]
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