Effects of storage conditions and culture media on the saprobic fungi diversity in tropical leaf litter

Abstract

The effects of methodology were observed in a community of fungi grown in culture associated with leaf litter of Clusia nemorosa, collected in the state of Bahia, northeast of Brazil. We examined the effects of variables as storage time (fresh leaf litter, 07, 14, 21 and 28 days) and temperature (room temperature and 4°C), and culture media (MYE and DRBC) on the diversity of fungi. Protocol of particle filtration was used to achieve the isolation of fungi. A total of 1.113 strains belonging to 67 taxa were isolated. The analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated that richness and the number of isolates decreased significantly with storage time, but did not vary in relation to culture media. The differences between the communities related to the storage temperatures were not significant based on the t–test. The diversity analysis indicated that storage samples up to 14 days showed no significant differences in the communities when compared to fresh litter. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) shows a tendency of separation between the communities observed in the different temperatures and between the initial storage times and late. The results indicate that in the storage of leaves for up to 14 days no significant changes in the community were observed, however in longer storage periods there was a notable loss in both richness and quantity of fungi.