Distribution of foliicolous fungi in diverse forest types of Maharashtra State of India

Abstract

Foliicolous fungal diversity studies were conducted to document the distribution of various foliicolous fungi in different forest types of Maharashtra and the garden areas of Pune city. A total of 1801 foliicolous samples were collected, from which a total of 589 fungal isolates belonging 360 fungal species under 197 genera were recorded. Various measures of diversity, such as species richness, indices of diversity and evenness and true diversity were calculated. Maximum and minimum fungal diversity was observed for Southern Indian Moist Deciduous Forests (3B) and West Coast Tropical Evergreen Forests (1A/C4), respectively, in terms of the number of isolates (294 vs 31), observed species richness (194 vs 26), diversity indices (Shannon’s = 5.0421 vs 3.2104; Gini-Simpson’s = 0.9911 vs 0.9573) and true diversity (Shannon’s effective number of species = 154 vs 24). Different forest types greatly differed in terms of species composition as well, as maximum similarity (Jaccard Similarity Index = 10.66%) was observed between Western Subtropical Hill (8A/C2) Forests and West Coast Semi-Evergreen (2A/C2) Forests, with only one species (<1% of total) viz., Colletotrichum gloeosporioides common in all forests.