No abstract

For the Darién Province, an area larger than Jamaica in Eastern Panama, up to now only 19 species of fungi, mainly lichens and plant parasitic microfungi, have been known. Two general mycological forays including most major groups of fungi were carried out in this area for the first time. During 3 days mostly in secondary vegetation and 2 days in pristine forest, about 104 specimens of macro-and microfungi were collected, of which 85 were identified as 76 species of which all but one were new records for the Darién Province. As a result, knowledge on fungal taxa in that region has risen from 19 to 94, i.e. by a factor of five. Although common and easily-spotted species were preferred during collection, 16 (more than 20%) of the species identified were new for Panama, notably two species of Agaricales, Hygroaster nodulisporus and Leucopaxillus gracillimus, and four microfungi on plants, Cercosporella leucaenae, Coccomyces delta, Meliola bixae, and Stigmina anacardii. The records of the species are presented together with specimen data, M. Piepenbring Á T. Trampe references, and photos of selected species. As shown by this study, fungi in tropical Panama are highly diverse, mostly unknown, and further mycological field work is urgently needed because habitats are destroyed and fungi specific to them are lost forever.

Set of seven of these nematodes, two males and five females, taken from a fresh-water tortoise from Tasquillo, State of Hidalgo, Mexico, collected in 1937.