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Host Specialization among Wood‐Decay Polypore Fungi in a Caribbean Mangrove Forest 1
Author(s) -
Gilbert Gregory S.,
Sousa Wayne P.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
biotropica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.813
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1744-7429
pISSN - 0006-3606
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2002.tb00553.x
Subject(s) - mangrove , rhizophora mangle , biology , host (biology) , ecology , botany , panama
Host specialization in highly diverse tropical forests may be limited by the low local abundance of suitable hosts. To address whether or not fungi in a low‐diversity tropical forest were released from this restriction, fruiting bodies of polypore basidiomycete fungi were collected from three species of mangroves ( Avicennia germinans, Laguncularia racemosa , and Rhizophora mangle ) in a Caribbean mangrove forest in Panama. Unlike other tropical forests, the polypore assemblage in this mangrove forest was strongly dominated by a few host‐specialized species. Three fungal species, each with strong preference for a different mangrove host species, comprised 88 percent of all fungi collected.