Identification of mushrooms from pine plantations within the Tsitsikamma region, South Africa
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Date
2022
Authors
Herselman, Maryke
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
Mushrooms have been exploited for ages by mankind for their astoundingly wide application as a sustainable dietary supplement that also carries economical, ecological value and medicinal qualities. Although some mushrooms are considered edible and flavoursome others are deadly. Mushrooms also play ecologically vital roles in nature as decomposers, pathogens and symbionts of plants, animals and humans. Mushrooms have in recent times been heavily explored for new-age biotechnological and medical innovations, but without knowledge of species present in a country, regulation is difficult. In South Africa, knowledge about the biodiversity of macro fungi seems to be lacking. To expand this biodiversity knowledge, this study focused on the coastal Tsitsikamma region in the Eastern Cape province, which represents the largest native forest area of South Africa. However, these forests are interspersed with commercial tree plantations, agriculture and urban development. Specifically, this study focused on mushrooms occurring in plantation areas, to initiate a knowledge base of macro fungi associated with these alien plants, before future studies can determine which are more likely native mushrooms, and if mushrooms from these alien plants can also be found in native vegetation. Therefore, the first aim of the study was to collect and document mushroom diversity and morphology from plantations, and to highlight distinguishable and identifiable characteristics. Morphological studies were aided in the second aim of using rDNA nuclear Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) DNA sequence comparisons to confirm specimen identities. A total of 13 species were collected and identified from various plantations in the region. These included species of Amanita, Russula and Lactarius, as well as Panaeolus, Chlorophyllum, Clitopilus, Imleria and Gymnopilus. One specimen identified to be a Chlorophyllum species could not be identified to species level, and may possibly represent a novel species. The study yielded three first reports for South Africa, namely L. quieticolor, P. antillarum and A. morissi, with the latter species having vulnerable red list status and is only known from North America. It was also found that the South African described R. capensis could possibly be conspecific to R. caerulea, which occurs widely in the Northern Hemisphere. A large number of species found were also ectomycorrhizal, having a symbiotic relationship with plant roots, which were pines in this study. The use of DNA sequence comparisons in this study revealed novel associations and reports, in some cases different from the better known morphologically identified species previously known from the region. This study thus shows that careful surveys should be done in future, using both morphological and DNA sequence based identification.
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Keywords
Dissertation (M.Sc. (Genetics))--University of the Free State, 2022, Amanita, biodiversity, chlorophyllum, clitopilus, gymnopilus, imleria, internal transcribed spacer, lactarius, panaeolus, pinus, russula