Biodiversity of rock, beach and water fungi in Italy

Abstract

The fungal biodiversity in its overall is mostly still unknown and the ecological role of these organisms, particularly in some border ecosystems, is often underestimated. This study aims to give both an overview of the state of the art and to present new data on the mycodiversity in some peculiar environments as rocks, beach sand, and water in Italy. Particularly, rock fungi are here reported from high mountain peaks, sea cliffs, and monuments; sand associated fungi from beach ecosystems in Puglia and Ligurian coasts; marine fungi associated with the endemic seagrass of the Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica L.; aquatic hyphomycetes (Ingoldian fungi) from both streams in the Ticino Natural Park and lentic water in Lago Maggiore; fungi from the water distribution system in Turin. Ecological and evolutive considerations are put forward.

Extremotolerant rock inhabiting black fungi from Italian monumental sites

“…Two of the taxa described here, K. vaticanii and L. guttulata, were found in the Vatican only and are probably able to cope with air pollution. Knufia petricola remains one of the recurrent species on stone monuments in the Mediterranean area (Wollenzien et al 1997;Bogomolova and Minter 2003;Onofri et al 2011).…”

Fungal biodiversity and in situ conservation in Italy

“…Ongoing ex situ and in situ conservation strategies drawn up by mycologists working in the universities of Bologna, Palermo, Perugia, Siena, and Turin are devoted to target species and/or different taxonomic groups. They will be also presented in this article, together with other contributions on fungal biodiversity in Italy (Onofri et al 2011 Onofri, These activities in assessing fungal diversity in Italy should be still considered as starting point and that has been a major reason for producing an updated report on the status of fungal diversity and mycological research in Italy. In the case of hypogeous and semi-hypogeous fungi, the term "rare" is difficult to apply but the expansion of surveyed areas in Italy over the last 10 years and an increased knowledge of their ecology and distribution permit a better evaluation of their status.…”

Human trampling effects on Mediterranean coastal dune plants

“…Direct actions such as biodiversity conservation (Guillet et al 2012), protection and reintroduction of vascular plants , and related taxa (Minter 2011;Onofri et al 2011;Venturella et al 2011) should consider the different effects of human-induced impacts on dune vegetation cover at low and high accessible sites that were shown in this study. Unfortunately, in touristic areas, it is not always possible to fence dunes to prevent people entering, so conservation actions should include people information and motivation to reduce frequentation impacts.…”

“…This pre adaptation to natural disturbances is likely to be an effective mechanism against human-induced dis turbances, allowing a fast improvement in general conditions of coastal dune communities once disturbance ceases or has been limited. Several habitats contribute to high biodiversity of costal ecosystems (Costa et al 2011;Onofri et al 2011;Puglisi et al 2012;Pulina et al 2012), which are therefore considered worth of conservation at continental (Basset & Los 2012), national (Capotorti et al 2012), and regional level . In Sardinia even if the habitat categories that are most rich in endemic plants are rocky habitats, and coastal/halophytic habitats, the most endangered habitat is coastal sand dunes on the basis of the threat level of the vascular plants living on beaches .…”