ARTHROPODS INHABITING THE SPOROPHORES OF FOMES FOMENTARIUS (POLYPORACEAE) IN GATINEAU PARK, QUEBEC

Abstract

The fauna of the sporophores of the perennial bracket fungus Fomes fomentarius (L. ex Fr.) Kickx were examined in a 3-year study. One species of molluscs and more than 152 species of arthropods excluding mites, representing 13 orders, 70 families, and 5400 individuals, emerged from or were found on or in, 1448 sporophores detached from dead birch trees; the sporophores were collected each year in Gatineau Park, Que., kept individually in screen-topped glass jars in a laboratory, and examined for several months. Mites, which were recorded quantitatively only in the final year, added 4 orders, 19 families, and 30 species to the preceding totals. Mites were the most frequently occurring and probably the most numerous arthropods, followed by Coleoptera, Psocoptera, Collembola, Hymenoptera, and Diptera.The key organisms of the fauna were five species of beetles that were primarily responsible for tunnelling and destruction of the sporophores and would therefore exert great influence on the composition of the community. Their tunnels provided shelter and food for many smaller arthropods or facilitated their feeding. Some beetle species tunnelled the sporophores for one season and others, for several, but many living sporophores and most dead ones tunnelled by beetles were tunnelled in the same season by more than one species of beetles.There was considerable latitude in types of sporophores inhabited by various arthropods but some species were particularly attracted to living or dead, to younger or older, and to smaller or larger, sporophores. Some species were also attracted to certain regions of the sporophore more than were other species.Possible economic implications of observations made in the study are discussed.

Polypores of western Finnish Lapland and seasonal dynamics of polypore beetles

“…The construction of polypore basidiocarp is illustrated on Fig. 4, and the terminology in principle follows Matthewman & Pielou (1971) with minor changes (Table 4, Fig. 4).…”

“…The existence of multi-species associations within the basidiocarps of numerous polypore species refl ects the structural (and probably nutrient and microclimatic) differences among different parts of a fungal fruit body. Insect preferences to various parts of the Fomes fomentarius pileus were described by Matthewman & Pielou (1971).…”

Species coexistence patterns in a mycophagous insect community inhabiting the wood-decaying bracket fungus Cryptoporus volvatus (Polyporaceae: Basidiomycota)

“…The niche partitioning hypothesis posits that different insect species use different resources (resource partitioning, sensu Wertheim et al, 2000), or different developmental and/or life stages of a resource (successional niche partitioning; Guevara et al, 2000;Jonsell & Nordlander, 2004;etc. ), or different organs and/or parts of a given resource (Matthewman & Pielou, 1971;Hackman & Meinander, 1979). The spatial mechanisms hypothesis posits that when different species are spatially aggregated in a number of patches (e.g., fungus-dwelling insects in individual sporocarps), this can by chance create spatial refuges for inferior competitors (the so-called aggregation model of coexistence; Atkinson & Shorrocks, 1981;Ives & May, 1985).…”

Fungivorous beetles in basidiocarps of Fomes fomentarius respond differently to microhabitat variables

“…Data was collected from April to mid June 1993. In the study area all 587 dead basidio carps of F. fomentarius (as defined by Matthewman & Pielou (1971) were collected from 185 trees (125 birches (Betula pubescens) and 60 grey alder (Alnus incana)) and dissected to reveal their content of beetles. Boreal deciduous trees were the dominant tree species in the forest islands, and F. fomentarius basidiocarps were by far the most common basidiocarps on dead wood in the study area (pers.…”