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Biodiversity of wood-inhabiting fungi in Israeli pine forests

Informally Refereed

Abstract

During the twentieth century the Jewish National Fund (JNF) planted more than 200 million trees in Israel. These newly developing forests provide an opportunity to study the development of fungal communities. This study was initiated to quantify taxa richness and abundance of wood-inhabiting corticioid and polyporoid fungi (including heterobasidiomycetes) in eight even-aged forests dominated by Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine). Four of the stands were 5-15 years of age, and four were 30-45 years of age. Of the four younger stands, three were previously planted to P. halepensis. Each stand was sampled by running eight transect lines radiating from a central point, and establishing two dusters of five 25 m2 plots along each line, for a total sampling area of 2000 m2 per site. Taxa accumulation curves were generated for each site to assess the completeness of sampling. A total of 78 taxa was observed in all eight sites, with 62 taxa in the four old stands and 53 taxa in the four young stands. The average number of taxa in the old stands was 32, while the average number of taxa in the young stands was 26.

Keywords

Aphyllophorales, Basidiomycete, Corticiaceae, heterobasidiomycete, Israel, Polyporaceae, polypore, species richness

Citation

Czederpiltz, D.L.L.; Wikler, K.; Radmacher, M.R.; Volk, T.J.; Hadar, Y.; Micales, J. 2004. Biodiversity of wood-inhabiting fungi in Israeli pine forests. Fungi in forest ecosystems : systematics, diversity, and ecology. New York : New York Botanical Garden, 2004. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden ; vol. 89: Pages [191]-202
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/9127