Species Composition of Polypore Fungi in Several Types of Tropical Forests in Sarawak, Northern Borneo

Species Composition of Polypore Fungi in Several Types of Tropical Forests in Sarawak, Northern Borneo

Satoshi Yamashita1*, Habibah Salleh2, Noorhana Binti Mohd Sapawi 2, and Tsutomu Hattori1

1Forestry and Forest Product Research Institute, Japan

2Forest Department Sarawak, Malaysia

*Email: symsht@affrc.go.jp

It is well-known that fungal species composition is highly related with forest types. However, information on species composition of polypore fungi from variety types of natural forest is very limited in SE Asia. The Forest Department of Sarawak, Malaysia, has around 800 specimens of polypore fungi collected from various parts of the state from the 1950s to the present. The aim of this study is to reveal the difference in species composition among forest types by using information taken from the fungarium of FDS. As a result, it was confirmed that a total of 167 species out of 608 has been collected from more than 40 collection sites so far. By using this data, high similarity in species composition of polypore species is observed between dipterocarp forest and Kerangas (tropical heath) forest, between mangrove forest and swamp forest, and between limestone forest and riparian forest. This suggests that forest type of natural forests is important environmental factor which affect species composition in SE Asia.