Diversity of soil fungi in a tropical deciduous forest in Mudumalai, southern India

Abstract

An analysis of the diversity of sporulating fungi monitored over two consecutive wet seasons in the Mudumalai forest reserve of the Western Ghats, southern India, revealed a total of 46 operational taxonomic units. A majority belonged to the class Deuteromycetes, followed by Ascomycetes. Mortierella was the dominant genus followed by Fusarium and Penicillium. We observed a mean of 5.63 ± 2.37 and 7.63 ± 2.97 genera per hectare and estimated a 50 ha-wide total of 43 and 69 genera during the two seasons respectively. We estimate the number of species in the 16 hectares sampled as 207 and 284 respectively. The mean fungal population density over the same two seasons was 2.67 ± 1.49 × 104 and 2.14 ± 0.69 × 10 4 cultivable clones per g of soil. Indices of diversity were 3.1 and 3.6 (Shannon-Wiener), 5.3 and 8.8 (Fisher's alpha) and 0.79 and 0.86 (Simpson) respectively, all in terms of genus as OTU.