A preliminary checklist of lignicolous marine fungi from Ecuador and South America

Abstract

This paper presents a checklist on marine fungi from South America and Ecuador based on field collections during 2008–2009 and 2019–2020 in two mangrove ecosystems of the Ecuadorian coasts and an exhaustive review of relevant literature on marine fungi in South America. The present checklist contains updated names of the species reported for this part of the world and host, substrate, and collection site. One hundred twenty-three species are reported for South America: the Microascales and Pleospo-rales were the most dominant orders, with 69 species distributed in ten families. For Ecuador, 42 species are registered based on literature and our collections. Multivariate analysis revealed that the two mangrove ecosystems are not similar, corroborating the Hutcheson t-test. The biodiversity of marine fungi for Ecuador is 3.572 and 9.257 for the Shannon and Margaleft Index, respec- tively. The biodiversity of marine fungi in South America is similar to that reported in other tropical and temperate zones.