Abstract:
Fungi are among the most diverse group of living organism
s
on earth, though inadequately
studied worldwide
and especially in Rwanda
.
The main
objective of this study
was to
assess
the diversity and describe the ecology
of mushrooms species in Rwanda in order to develop a
baseline that can help for
further
studie
s on fung
i
in the country.
The
Macromycetes
diversity and distributi
on of
the
riparian zone of Lake
Kivu were
studied
by
plot
-
based mushroom survey
s
at
3 study sites
(
Mariri, Mpangara
and Nyakarwa
)
and
simple rand
om
searches
in
the
garden of
the M
useum of
E
nvironment,
from September 2016
to June 2017. More than 64 mushroom species
were
recorded, collected, dried and their
specimens are conserved
in
the
M
useum
of Environment
of Karongi, Rwanda
. A total of 64
species
were
collected
,
belong
ing
to 8 orders, 2
6 families and 40 genera. It was reveale
d that
the
riparian zone of Lake Kivu
is dominated by Agaricales, an order represented by 52
species
,
81% of all species collected.
The total order/family ratio of 0.31, family/genus ratio
of 0.65 and genus/species r
atio of 0.63
is
an indicator of high fam
ily and generic diversity
in
the
collections
. Families highly represented in collections with the most number of species
a
re Agaricaceae with 18 species, Tricholomataceae with 10 species and Psathyrellaceae with
5 sp
ecies. In this study,
Termitomyces medius
was
collected and recorded for the first time in
Rwanda.
This study has provided 14 new records on the list of mushroom species in Rwanda.
Moreover, the study has also provided other 43 potential new records which
were identified
to genus level
.
More
number of
mushrooms
species was
recorded in Nyakarwa F
orest and
Sorenson similarity matrix calculated showed dissimilarity richness and distribution of
mushrooms species
among
4 sites surveyed during this study. During
the study period, the
number of sp
ecies
present
increased with rainfall
. The most species were recorded and
collected in December and decreased to 0 in
the June
dry season
.
