Abstract
BackgroundMenge District has long been inhabited by people who have a long tradition of using wild mushrooms mainly as food, source of income, and medicine. Extensive utilization of wild edible mushrooms (WEM) coupled with an ever-increasing population growth, deforestation, and agricultural land expansion threatens fungal diversity and WEM in the area. Hence, this study is aimed at documenting and analyzing the ethnomycological knowledge of the people in order to preserve the dwindling WEM wealth and associated indigenous knowledge.MethodsEthnomycological data were collected using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations, and walk-in-the-woods methods. Statistical tests were used to compare the indigenous knowledge and practice of wild mushroom among different informant categories using One-way ANOVA and t tests.ResultsA total of 20 ethnomycologically important wild mushroom species belonging to ten genera and six families were identified, of which 15 were reported to be edible in the District. The family Lyophyllaceae was represented by the highest number of species (nine species, 45%) followed by Agaricaceae (seven species, 35%) and each of the remaining four families had single species representation. Significant difference (P < 0.05) was observed on the mean number of WEM reported among different group of respondents. Wild edible mushroom collection habit and practice was significantly (P < 0.05) influenced by gender, age, and literacy level. The output of preference ranking exercise indicated Termitomyces schimperi was ranked first followed by Termitomyces letestui, Termitomyces microcarpus, and Termitomyces eurhizusas as the most preferred edible mushrooms respectively.ConclusionThe present study shows that Menge District is rich in wild mushroom diversity and associated indigenous knowledge. However, anthropogenic factors together with loss of indigenous knowledge and very poor conservation efforts threaten the survival of economically and ecologically important mushrooms in the area. Thus, complementary in situ and ex situ mushroom conservation strategy is highly recommended.
Highlights
Menge District has long been inhabited by people who have a long tradition of using wild mushrooms mainly as food, source of income, and medicine
Diversity of ethnomycologically important wild mushrooms the diversity of species of macrofungi in Menge District is high, the widely shared body of cultural knowledge is restricted to a small group which belongs to ten genera and six mycological families
Ethnomycological findings of this study showed that almost all respondents have a very good knowledge about all the species of termitophilous mushrooms; Termitomyces clypeatus, Termitomyces eurhizus, Termitomyces letestui, Termitomyces microcarpus, Termitomyces schimperi, Termitomyces robustus, Termitomyces
Summary
Menge District has long been inhabited by people who have a long tradition of using wild mushrooms mainly as food, source of income, and medicine. The low fat content, with high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids [4] relative to the total content of fatty acids makes them a good source of fat. Besides their use as a food, the ethnomedicinal and ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms for divination and curing [2, 5] among traditional peoples in various regions of the world is another important aspect of human-fungi interactions. Despite the high diversity of wild edible mushroom (WEM) in Africa especially in the tropics [1], the scarcity and lack of ethnomycological reports in many African countries is briefly reviewed. Boa has shown in his report that countries of the continent where there are better reports regarding WEM utilization includes South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Congo Democratic Republic Congo, Cameroon, Morocco, and Kenya
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