Book of Abstracts (PDF) - International Mycological Association

IMC7 Friday August 16th Lectures
380 - Polypore diversity in Costa Rica
J. Carranza 1* & A. Ruiz-Boyer 2
1 Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San
Pedro, Costa Rica. - 2 Departamento de Historia Natural,
Museo Nacional, San José, Costa Rica. - E-mail:
julietac@biologia.ucr.ac.cr
The systematic study of polypore fungi in Costa Rica
started with the collections by Dr. Josiah L. Lowe in 1963.
Recent studies have contributed to the knowledge of this
group in Costa Rica. Currently, 81 genera and 284 species
of pore fungi have been reported for Costa Rica. It has
been calculated that the total amount of species will be
around 350-400. Most of the species reported are
cosmopolitan, and are distributed through out the country.
Nevertheless, the highest diversity is found from sea level
to 900 m with less taxonomic diversity on high elevations
(2000-3000 m).
381 - Biodiversity of Russula in Costa Rica: a first
account
B. Buyck
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 12 rue Buffon, 75005
Paris, France. - E-mail: buyck@mnhn.fr
Information on Russula in Costa Rica is scarce and very
fragmentary notwithstanding the fact that many hundreds
of specimens have been collected, especially in the last ten
years. Only very few new Russula's have been described
from Costa Rica so far, but it is clear that the genus is
highly divers and is characterized by an important degree
of endemism. As can be expected, the Costa Rican taxa - at
least in the more temperate mountain areas - reveal strong
similarities with the Russula's from eastern North America.
Unfortunately however, even in North America the
knowledge of Russula remains rather superficial. With the
exception of some subsections, there exists no complete,
modern, taxonomic study of American Russula that can
serve as an adequate basis for a revision of the genus in
Costa Rica. To illustrate the above, some examples of
biogeographically or otherwise interesting Russula's will be
presented in more detail. The relation between species
diversity, host distribution and general ecology will be
addressed and compared with observations from other
continents.
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Book of Abstracts
382 - Diversity of Costa Rican wood-inhabiting
pyrenomycetes and loculoascomycetes
S.M. Huhndorf * & F.A. Fernandez
Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr.,
Chicago, IL 60605, U.S.A. - E-mail: shuhndorf@fmnh.org
Ascomycetes constitute the largest known group of fungi
worldwide, occurring in all ecosystems and geographic
areas as saprobes, pathogens and endophytes. Almost all
historical reports of pyrenomycetes and loculoascomycetes
for Costa Rica pertain to leaf-inhabiting fungi. Woodinhabiting
taxa in these groups are virtually unknown - one
of the only reports listed seven species in three genera in
one family. A total of 531 specimens were collected from
1996 to 2001. The specimens were distributed among 213
species in 45 families. Species in six families were
frequently encountered: 26% of the fungi collected were in
the Chaetosphaeriaceae, 20% in the Lasiosphaeriaceae,
12% in the Annulatascaceae s.l., 7% in the Xylariaceae, 7%
in the Melanommataceae, 6% in the Hypocreaceae, 6% in
the Platystomaceae and 6% in the Tubeufiaceae. In
addition to our own collections, specimens have been
examined from parataxonomists collecting in 5
conservation areas in 2001 and 2002. Parataxonomists
collected 1133 specimens of ascomycetes on trunks and
455 specimens from plots. Field identifications reported
specimens (% of trunk or plot collections) in the following
groups: Xylariales (32% trunk; 35% plot),
Lasiosphaeriaceae (13% trunk; 8% plot), Hypocreales (8%
trunk; 7% plot), Melanommataceae (8% trunk; 4% plot),
Platystomaceae (4% trunk; 2% plot) and others.
Comparative data from collecting trips to lowland French
Guiana and Puerto Rico show proportions of taxa similar to
those for Costa Rica.
383 - Diversity of neotropical smut fungi
M. Piepenbring
Botanical Institute of the University of Frankfurt,
Senckenberganlage 31-33, 60054 Frankfurt am Main,
Germany. - E-mail: piepenbring@em.uni-frankfurt.de
After ten years of field work in neotropical countries,
morphological investigations, and study of the literature, a
monograph on neotropical smut fungi (Ustilaginomycetes,
Basidiomycota) is accepted for publication in Flora
Neotropica. 227 species in 34 genera are described. Among
these 17 species and 5 genera were described as new taxa
and ca. 34 new combinations were necessary. Further
interesting results were obtained concerning the diversity
of soral morphology, germination of teliospores, host
ranges, and geographical distribution of the different
species of smut fungi. However, much work remains to be
done before we might have a rather complete
understanding of the existing diversity of smut fungi in the
neotropics. An overview of the diversity of the known
neotropical species of smut fungi will be presented.