Hypogeous fungi in the diet of the red-legged pademelon 'Thylogale stigmatica' from a rainforestopen forest interface in northeastern Australia

Title
Hypogeous fungi in the diet of the red-legged pademelon 'Thylogale stigmatica' from a rainforestopen forest interface in northeastern Australia
Publication Date
2007
Author(s)
Vernes, Karl Adriaan
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1635-9950
Email: kvernes@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:kvernes
Trappe, James M
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales
Place of publication
Australia
UNE publication id
une:4447
Abstract
The diet of the Red-legged Pademelon 'Thylogale stigmatica' has previously been described as comprising a range of dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plants, rainforest fruits, seeds, and some fungi. We collected T stigmatica faecal samples from a rainforest-open forest ecotone in northeastern Australia and analysed them for the presence of fungal spores. Of the 20 samples collected, 12 contained spores of several types of hypogeous fungi, with the number of spore types per sample ranging from 1-7, with a mean of 5.Twenty fungal spore types were recognised in total; seven of these could be attributed to hypogeous ('truffle-like') ectomycorrhizal genera, and most others had spore morphologies suggestive of a hypogeous habit. This is the first report of consumption of ectomycorrhizal hypogeous fungi by the genus 'Thylogale', and as such, adds important new information on the role these forest-dwelling wallabies might play in dispersing hypogeous fungi across the dynamic interface between rainforest and open forest in eastern Australia.
Link
Citation
Australian Zoologist, 34(2), p. 203-208
ISSN
2204-2105
0067-2238
Start page
203
End page
208

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