Abies religiosa forests harbor the highest species density and sporocarp productivity of wild edible mushrooms among five different vegetation types in a neotropical temperate forest region

Abstract

More than 300 wild edible mushrooms are consumed in Mexico. They have been reported mainly from temperate forests in the center and southeast of the country. However, these valuable non-timber forest products are under-utilized because a lack of knowledge on their ecology and productivity. The objectives of this work were to compare the richness and fruit body production of wild edible mushrooms in temperate forests with a distinct vegetation composition in Amanalco, to describe species availability, and to test a new sampling approach in a heterogeneous environmental context. We designed a sampling method with random transects rather than traditional fixed sampling sites. Our method permits the acquisition of data from the highest number of environmental conditions. In 2009 and 2010, we collected and counted mushrooms in 248 transects distributed in five vegetation types (Abies, Abies–Pinus, Pinus, Pinus–Quercus and Quercus). We calculated the ecological importance value of each species as a function of its relative abundance and relative spatial frequency and relative temporal frequency. Abies religiosa pure stands and A. religiosa–Pinus forests had the greatest richness of edible fungi (43.1 and 21.3 species ha−1, respectively) and produced most of the fruit bodies (1,160 and 820 ha−1, respectively). The most abundant species in Amanalco region (combining all the vegetation types), Clavulina cinerea, Clitocybe gibba and Russula brevipes, also had the highest ecological importance value (0.2312, 0.1709 and 0.1516, respectively). These temperate forests maintain a considerable diversity of valuable wild edible mushrooms that are heterogeneously distributed according to the type of vegetation.