Fungal diversity in environments of repository of the national archive of the Republic of Cuba from the 80s to 2022

Abstract

This work aims to perform a compilation of the fungal diversity in the environment of the National Archive of the Republic of Cuba (NARC) repositories from the 80s of the last century and until 2022, which includes the fungal genera and species isolated from: air, settled dust and document surface, as ecological niches that contribute to the environmental mycological quality of these spaces in the institution. A total of 55 references were analyzed (31 of air, 4 of settled dust and 20 of different types of documents surface). A total of 168 fungal genera and 54 species were isolated from air, 36 genera and 12 species from dust as well as 98 genera and 26 species were detected on the document surfaces with a marked predominance of the genera Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Penicillium in the three niches, although 24 rare genera were detected in air after the year 2000 (e.g. Acremonium, Aureobasidium, Beltraniella, Bipolaris, Blastomyces, Botryoderma, Botryotrichum, Chaetomium, Chrysonilia, Exophiala, Gilmaniella, Harposporium, Hyalodendriella, Itersonilia, Nodulisporium, Ovulariopsis, Papularia, Scolecobasidium, Sepedonium, Sprorobolomyces, Torula, Trichophyton, Wardomyces, Zygosporium). Only six genera were similarly isolated from air, dust and the document surfaces (9.7%), while 19 species were found in these three niches (9.5%) (e.g. A. flavus, A. niger, A. versicolor, Cl. caryigenum, Cl. cladosporioides, Cl. herbarum, P. chrysogenum, P. citrinum, P. commune, P. janczewskii). Although fungal isolations from dust and the document surfaces are still scarce, it is evident that the greatest diversity of species was isolated from the air and that the similarities of species between these three niches are low, therefore air is the matrix that contributes with the most fungal species to the NARC environment. This compilation of the fungal diversity in the environment of the NARC repositories will serve as a reference for future studies in Cuban archives and other countries.