To what extent are we aware or unaware of the different fungi that can be found in French Guiana ?
This is one important question to which the FUNGUY (Fungi in French Guiana) project must bring answers, Fungi being, in taxonomy, a kingdom that comprises about 5 million species.
Lentinus aff. crinitus © Audrey Sagne
The objectives
FUNGUY aims at gathering mycologists who are expert in taxonomy and ecologists around field work with different objectives :
– set up an inventory of fungus associated to trees (endophytes and ectomycorrhizas) on sites where the diversity and the structure of the plant community are studied ;
– analyze the nutrition mode of certain type of fungi ;
– implement on these sites a follow-up of the spatial and temporal dynamics of fungi fructifications.
This project has been set up by Mélanie Roy from EDB Laboratory (Evolution and Biological Diversity – Toulouse) and Heidy Schimann from UMR EcoFoG (Ecologie of the Forests of French Guiana – Kourou) and selected by the CEBA’s 2011 call for projects.
Camillea cyclops © Audrey Sagne
Field work
The first phasis of the project consists in establishing an inventory to identify, take samples and locate the carpophores (see definition below) on 2 sites : the Nouragues and Paracou, where a great number of land plots are studied with Metabar (a project on environmental DNA sequencing). These zones are well-known on a plant diversity point of view.
A first mission has taken place in June-July 2012 : during two weeks, a team of 12 people has been walking all over the sites in search of fungi. Those who participated are mycologists specialized in different groups of fungi in relation to plants: expert mycologists from different universities (Régis Courtecuisse and Stéphane Welti from Lille 2 – France, Terry Henkel from Humboldt – USA and Cony Decock from Louvain – Belgium), Hubert Voiry and Gérald Gruhn, personnel from the ONF (Office National des Forêts – the French Forestry Commission), as well as Jacques Fournier and Christian Lechat, high-level amateur mycologists.
Audrey Sagne, future PhD student, was also part of the team. Her thesis subject deals with spatial distribution of fungus communities and in particular their structuring in relation with plant communities.
Some answers already ?
The first results of this mission show that we do not know much : on the 991 observed mushroom, only 224 have been identified as a specimen of a know species. Over all, 113 genuses were mentioned. Nevertheless, 209 samples on a total of more than 1100 samples are still uncertain even at the genus level.
These figures are preliminary because the identification mainly takes place after observation under the microscope and by comparison with samples of fungi collection (herbarium). We can underline that 78% of the samples are not identified beyond the family or the genus. They are probably new species ; at least, they have never been seen by these experts who are nevertheless familiar with the fungus from Guyana or the Antilles and who have already come to French Guiana a few years ago.
Hygrocybe sp. © Audrey Sagne
Projects for the future
Another mission will be organized in several months, probably in December – January with other experts. It will be the occasion to assess the lapping rate between two samplings. It seems that the species observed during preceding missions have not been observed during this last field work, which means there is a great diversity of fungi.
Xylariales sp. © Audrey Sagne
Definition
Carpophore (or sporocarp) : it is the organ of the fructification of the Fungi mycelium. It is the visible part of the organism, which is commonly called « mushroom ». It is typically composed of a cap (pileus) and a stipe.
