Diversity and
distribution of macrofungi in the man-made Pitchandikulam Forest of Tamil Nadu, southern India
S. Mani 1,3& V. Kumaresan 2
1 Pitchandikulam Bioresource Centre, Auroville,
Tamil Nadu 605101, India
2 Department of Plant Science, Tagore Arts College, Puducherry 605008, India
3 Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan 666303, P.R. China
Email: manitrees@yahoo.com 1; vkumaresan36@yahoo.com 2
Date of online
publication 26 June 2009
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) |
0974-7893 (print)
Editor: V.B. Hosagoudar
Manuscript details:
Ms # o2129
Received 29 January 2009
Final received 04 April 2009
Finally accepted 17 June 2009
Citation: S. Mani &
V. Kumaresan (2009). Diversity and
distribution of macrofungi in the man-made Pitchandikulam Forest of Tamil Nadu, southern India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 1(6): 340-343.
Copyright: © S. Mani &
V. Kumaresan 2009. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes,
reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and
the source of publication.
Author Details: S. Mani is currently post doctoral
fellow in XTBG, China, and his research is concerned with soil nutrition
dynamics in the primary and secondary tropical forests. V.
Kumerasan is currently teaching students, and also undertaking macrofungal diversity research in and around Puducherry.
Author Contribution: SM conducted
research in the field, analyzed data and prepared the manuscript. VK helped and
provided necessary comments during the study and manuscript preparation.
Acknowledgement: SM is grateful
to Mr. Joss Brooks and Mr. M. Eric Ramanujam for
their encouragement and constant support throughout the study. We also thank to
the anonymous reviewers for their comments.
Abstract: Diversity
and distribution of macrofungi in relation to
rainfall and humidity in the man-made PitchandikulamForest of Tamil Nadu, southern India werestudied. The 335 samples from five study
plots were composed of 18 species assigned to 14 genera and eight
families. Species density ranged from 46
to 87 individuals per plot. Of these,
164 collections were from soil, 147 from leaf litter, 21 from twig and 3 from
dead wood. The Shannon diversity index
ranged from 0.64 to 0.91. Overall, four species, i.e. Lycoperdon sp. (63 individuals), Marasmiellus nigripes (58), Termitomyces sp.1 (53) and Marasmiellus sp.1 (39) were
recorded from all the plots. The
species rank abundance measures were used to visualize distribution. Linear
regression indicated no relationship between rainfall and species density. The
quantitative analysis of macrofungi revealed a
positive trend towards re-creation of forest too.
Keywords: Macrofungi, man-made forest, species
abundance, species diversity, species rank.
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Introduction
Fungi are among the most important
organisms in the world, because of their vital role in ecosystem functions,
influence on humans and human-related activities (Mueller & Bills 2004). Although fungi are extremely diverse, they
are often ephemeral and cryptic, rendering inventorizationdifficult (Mueller et al. 2004a). The
ranges of some tropical species may not be as restricted as they appear because
of the lack of adequate surveys (Lodge et al. 1995). However, knowledge of biodiversity at the
community and species level is essential to monitor the effectiveness of, or
the need for reservation, and also to follow the effects of natural or artificial
disturbance (Packham et al. 2004). The data on fungal diversity and distribution
are limited and fragmentary, the consensus is that certain patterns are robust
and are worthy of further consideration. The objective of this study was to evaluate the species richness and
density of macrofungi by quantitative analysis of
species occurring in this man-made forest of the Coastal Tamil Nadu, southern
India.
Materials and methods
The present study was conducted in the
man-made Pitchandikulam Forest (PF - 11059’N
& 79049’E), in Auroville green belt area, a well protected 30 ha restored mixed forest.
Reforestation programmes began in 1973 by using
exotics like, Acacia auriculiformis and Eucalyptusglobulus and later there has been a significant
shift in priority for restoring the indigenous tropical dry evergreen forest
species (Ramanujam & Anbarasan2007). The mean annual temperature is
28.63°C, mean annual rainfall is 213mm during the
years 2006-2007 (Fig. 1). The climate is tropical asymmetric with the bulk of
the rain falling during the northeast monsoon (October to December). The mean relative humidity is 87.11% during
the study period (2006-2007).
The present study was carried out during
rainy season between October 2006 and January 2007, the most favorable season
for the production of fruit body. Five
20m x 20m square plots were established under the different plant communities
and the inter distance between the each plots was about 100m. These plots were established as a part of
plant the inventory project in the study sites, and using established plots
facilitates comparison of the plant and macrofungaldiversity data (Mueller et al. 2004b). There are no standard methods for accurately estimating the macrofungal species richness of an area, based on a sample
of the macrofungi (Schmitet al. 1999). Macrofungal fruitbodies were sampled once a week (Oct ’06 to Jan
’07) from all the five plots. Fruit
bodies of a species that occurred scattered and far apart were treated as
single individual. In case of small macrofungioccurring in groups/clusters, a frame of 20cm x 20cm was put on top of the
fruit body clusters and those fruit bodies inside the frame was treated as
single individual of a species. When the fungi were not identified to the
species level, numbers were given to differentiate species belonging to the
same genera after studying the morphological and anatomical dissimilarity.
Shannon diversity index (H’ = S-{pi*ln(pi)},
where pi is the proportion of the ithspecies) was calculated to understand species share in the study plots (Magurran 2004).
Results and discussion
This study is restricted to 335
collections made from the five study plots and recording 18 species belonging
to 14 genera distributed among 8 families. Species density ranged from 46 to 87
individuals per plot (Table 1). There
were four types of substrata that influenced the macrofungi, three of them
were plant material above the soil and another supported by soil. Of the total
collection, 164 (49%) were from soil, 147 (43.9%) from leaf litter, 21 (6.2%)
from twig and 3 (0.9%) from dead wood (Table 1). Lodge et al. (1995) summarized
that species richness was apparently less strongly related to host diversity in
large, inclusive groups that contain many decomposers. The Shannon diversity
index scored low(0.64) in plot 3 to high (0.91) in plot 4. The other three plots 1, 2, and 5
scored intermediate 0.75, 0.87 and 0.88, respectively. Four species: Lycoperdon sp. (18.8%; 63 individuals in total), Marasmiellus nigripes (17.3%; 58), Termitomyces sp.1 (15.8%; 53) and Marasmiellus sp.1
(11.64%; 39) were recorded in all the five plots with high density (Table
2). Nine species scored less than 10
individuals with two species, Calocera sp. and Thelephora ramarioides recorded one each in plot 2 (Table 2). The
distribution of some species may not be restricted as they appear but for
inadequate survey. To understand the
biodiversity of this group, long term survey is required (Arnolds 1992; Vogt et
al. 1992).
To visualize species abundance
distribution, the species rank abundance of five plots was used (Fig. 2). Each species was sorted in descending order,
and the proportion of the total number of individuals for each species was
plotted on the log scale against the species rank. Plots 1 and 3 showed a steep gradient indicating
low evenness as the high ranking species have much higher abundance than the
low ranking species (Fig. 2). A shallow
gradient indicates high evenness as the abundance of different species are
similar in plots 2, 4 and 5 (Fig. 2; Table 2). Species present in more than one plot tended to fruit maximally during
the same year in different plots than expected by chance alone. Moderate to
highly productive species were sometimes absent in productive years. These two observations together are considered
an indication for the specificity of species apart from the general
productivity of those years. It appears, unknown factors determine the species composition of the
assemblage and that a productivity factor determines the number of fruit bodies
that eventually would appear (Straatsma & Krisai-Greilhuber 2003).
A simple linearregressionshowed no relation to rainfall and species density ,may be due to less rainfall (Figure 3a). But, the relationship between humidity
and density was neutral in the study plots that could be due to moisture
retains (Figure 3b). These two observations and assumptions show an error
because of the short period of collection, poor number of rainy days and single
survey of the site (not monitored) as uncorrelated with the independent
variables. None the less, this method may be used to predict a positive
relationship between humidity and species abundance because more number of
fruit bodies were collected from leaf litter and soil
substratum (Table 1). Lindblad (2001) observed that the fruit bodies are possibly
produced at the same wood moisture level in all forests, and this level was
reached after heavy rain in the dry forest and after a dry period in the moist
and wet forests. However, quantitative data of macrofungaldiversity have been used to determine whether mushroom species follow the
ecological rule that the local abundance of a species is related to the size of
its geographic range (Gaston 1994; Johnson 1998). In a natural ecosystem
different processes could become prominent at different stages of the seasonal
cycle, and the changes in the patterns observed might, therefore, have
reflected temporal changes in the overall ecosystem functioning (Krivtsov et al. 2004). In the present study the quantitative analysis of macrofungirevealed their diversity and distribution in the tropical man-made forest,
suggesting recreation of tropical forests not only influence fauna and flora,
but also macrofungi considerably.
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