Five coastal locations on the southeast coast of India severely disturbed after the tsunami on December 26, 2004 were surveyed for the occurrence of filamentous fungi on woody debris by means of short-term (1 month) and long-term (12 months) damp incubation. Short-term incubation revealed 26 mitosporic fungi (8 genera) ranging from 14 to 17 taxa per location with a total frequency of occurrence between 0.4 and 5.6 %. Aspergillus taxa were dominant and six of them were common to all locations.Long-term incubation yielded 35 fungi (25 genera) (22 ascomycetes, 1 basidiomycete and 12 mitosporic fungi). The total fungal taxa per location ranged from 25 to 28 with a total frequency of occurrence of 0.8 to 46.8 %. Corollospora gracilis was the most dominant ascomycete (46.8 %), while Cirrenalia tropicalis and Dictyosporium pelagicum dominated among mitosporic fungi (18 %). The total frequency of occurrence of 11 ascomycetes and four mitosporic fungi was above 10 %. Twelve ascomycetes and two mitosporic fungi were common to all locations. The richness of fungi was higher after long-term than short-term incubation. The occurrence of 61 fungal taxa in this study suggests that the tsunami-dumped woody litter on the southeast coast of India might have at least partially originated from the ocean, thus representing a mosaic of fungi existing in seawater and sediments.
Ravikumar M., Sridhar K. R., Sivakumar T., Karamchand K. S., Sivakumar N., Vellaiyan R. (2009): Diversity of filamentous fungi on coastal woody debris after tsunami on the southeast coast of India. – Czech Mycology 61(1): 107–115.
