Chapter Four

15
North Queensland, and found 57 taxa comprising 18 ascomycetes and 39 anamorphic
fungi from 13 different leaf types. They identified 2–3 unique fungi from each leaf
species, with overlap in only 40% of species. Their evidence suggests that litter fungi
are less ubiquitous than originally thought, but further work with good statistical
analysis is required to confirm this.
Wood has advantages as a substratum for studying community dynamics
(Boddy, 1986). Wood decomposition in temperate terrestrial ecosystems is brought
about largely by fungi since, by comparison with unicellular micro-organism, the
mycelial form adopted by most fungi is specially suitable for invasion of solid, bulky,
spatially determinate resource units. Details of the capacity of microorganisms to
decay wood are given elsewhere. Basidiomycetes are reported as the major agents of
wood decomposer.
Recently, the biodiversity and ecology of fungi on leaf litter in Thailand has
been studied (Promputtha, 2002, 2004a, b, c, 2005b; Duong, 2006; Thongkantha,
2006). Thirty-seven collections of saprobic fungi were identified from leaf litter of
Magnolia liliifera in northern Thailand (Promputtha, 2002). They comprised 20
ascomycetes and 17 anamorphic taxa (13 hyphomycetes and 4 coelomycetes). Some
authors consider that because Thailand is in the tropics, the saprobes and pathogens
should be highly diverse (Dreyfuss and Petrini, 1984; Hyde, 2000).
2.6 Fungal Succession
Fungal succession is a time-related change in fungal community structure (Dix
and Webster, 1995). In other words, fungal succession is a study of the changes in the
structure of fungal communities on various substrata over time (Yanna, 1997). Rayner