First records of myxomycetes from El Salvador

Abstract

Myxomycetes have been studied formally in most of Central America except for El Salvador. Even though this country is the last in the region to begin an official inventory for this group of organisms, the 37 new records reported herein suggest that the myxobiota of El Salvador can be valuable for biogeographical analyses. As an example, this study reports Perichaena tessellata for the first time in the Neotropical region. Such an observation along with studies conducted in previous years in Central America show that the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot can provide important information to understand myxomycete dynamics in tropical areas. Additionally to the latter, during the present study a first characterization of the species of myxomycetes present in Montecristo National Park was also carried out. This is an important contribution to the biological knowledge of critical conservation areas in Central America since such park is one of the few remnants of cloud forest in El Salvador. For microbial conservation purposes, these types of rapid biodiversity assessments are imperative in understudied areas of the world such as El Salvador and necessary in forest types such as Montecristo that are threatened by climate and land use change.