No abstract

Background Covering about 2 Mio. km 2 by the arrival of the first European settlers, the Cerrado savannas are second in extent only to Amazonian forests amongst the South American biomes (Diniz et al. 2010; Eiten 1972; Oliveira and Marquis 2002). The Cerrado sits strategically at the centre of the continent, connecting two open vegetation biomes-the Chaco to the southwest and the Caatinga to the northeast-thus forming a diagonal corridor of dry habitats in South America, and simultaneously establishing a biogeographical barrier between two forest biomes-Amazonia to the northwest and the Atlantic Forest to the southeast (Schmidt and Inger 1951; Vanzolini 1963; Werneck 2011). Moreover, it also occurs as isolated patches within other biomes, presumably relicts of a more extensive past distribution (

Fungi are found in all aerobic ecosystems, colonizing a diversity of substrates and performing a wide diversity of functions, some of which are not well understood. Many spices of fungi are cosmopolitan and generalists or habitats. Unusual fungal niches are habitats where extreme conditions would be expected to prevent the development of a mycobiota. In this review we describe five unusual fungal habitats in which fungi occupy poorly understood niches: Antarctic dry valleys, high Arctic glaciers, salt flats and salterns, hypersaline microbial mats and plant trichomes. Yeasts, black yeast-like fungi, melanized filamentous species as well as representatives of Aspergillus and Penicillium seem to be dominant among the mycobiota adapted to cold and saline niches. Plant trichomes appear to be a taxa. The advent of new sequencing technologies is helping to elucidate the microbial diversity in many ecosystems, but more studies are needed to document the functional role of fungi in the microbial communities thriving in these unusual environments.

No abstract

No abstract