Terrestrial Macrofungi

Abstract

The ecology of fungi that form macroscopic fruit-bodies is, in many respects, better known than the ecology of microfungi. This is because the presence of fruit-bodies enables information to be readily gathered about distribution, seasonal abundance, habitat, substratum preference, etc. Although certain ascomycetes have large ascocarps, the best-known macrofungi are the basidiomycetes, especially the Hymenomycetes. Macroscopic basidiocarps are also formed by jelly fungi (Heterobasidiomycetes) and by puffballs, stinkhorns, bird’s nest fungi and others, arbitrarily classified together as Gasteromycetes. Fungi with macroscopic basidiocarps thus belong to very diverse taxonomic groups and it should not surprise us that there is also diversity in their nutritional relationships (Rayner, Watling and Frankland, 1985). Some are saprotrophs, playing an important role in litter and wood decay, whilst others are symbionts. Some symbionts, especially the fungi which form mycorrhizal relationships with trees, may have only a limited free-living existence away from their living hosts. Watling (1982) has related the major taxa of basidiomycetes to their ecology, and has listed the nutritional relationships of some of the major orders and their families (Table 13.1).