Caracterização das comunidades de fungos assexuais em diferentes substratos em um fragmento de mata úmida da Paraíba.

Abstract

Asexual microfungi are the main decomposing agents of plant substrates present in litter. In this way, they participate in the nutrient cycling process so important to the maintenance of balance in forest ecosystems. The goal of the present study was to investigate the asexual microfungi associated with the litter of a fragment of moist forest in the municipality of Areia, Paraíba, as well as to analyze the richness and similarity of the mycobiotics of the different plant substrates. Two collection expeditions were carried out at the Jayme Coelho de Moraes Arboretum, CCA/UFPB, in July and December/2019. Five points were defined and leaves, barks and twigs were collected, totaling 120 substrates. The methodology used for the detection of microfungi was direct observation using the moist chamber technique. Forty-seven taxa were characterized during the study. The twigs showed higher taxon richness, followed by leaves. Considering the collection expeditions, the first presented greater richness in all substrates. The greatest overlap of taxa occurred between the twig and bark communities. As for the exclusive taxa, the branches presented the highest number followed by the leaves. The cluster analysis revealed that the substrate was the most significant factor for the distribution of fungi among communities. In addition, it showed that the bark and twig fungi were more similar to each other. The data indicated that the investigated substrates and environment support a great fungal diversity, which are fundamental for the decomposition of organic matter that is present on the soil surface.