My contribution to the fungal knowledge of India VB Hosagoudar ...

My contribution to the fungal knowledge of IndiaIntroductionThe Indian subcontinent has rich biologicaldiversity in the world owing to its vast geographic area,varied topography and climate; it is classified into 10biogeographic regions. Among the 34 hotspots of theworld, two are mainly found in India extending intoneighboring countries - the Western Ghats/Sri Lanka andthe eastern Himalaya.The Western Ghats are a chain of highlands runningalong the western coast of India, from the Vindhya-Satpura ranges in the north to the southern tip,traversing through Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Keralaand Tamil Nadu states. These hills reach up to a heightof 2800m before they merge to the east with the DeccanPlateau at an altitude of 500–600 m. The average widthof this mountain range is about 100km covering an areaof 159,000km 2 and it is an area of exceptional biologicaldiversity and conservation interest.The Western Ghats comprise the mountain rangethat runs the ecosystems of the Western Ghats arelocated mainly in the following regions: the tropicalwet evergreen forests in Amboli and Radhanagari; themontane evergreen forests in Mahabaleshwar andBhimashanker; moist deciduous forests in Mulsi andthe scrub forest in Mundanthurai. There are two maincentres of diversity, the Agashyamalai Hills and the SilentValley. The complex topography and the heavy rainfallhave made certain areas inaccessible and have helpedthe region to retain its diversity. There are currentlyseven national parks in the Western Ghats with a totalarea of 2,073km 2 (equivalent to 1.3% of the region)and 39 wildlife sanctuaries covering an area of about13,862km 2 (8.1%). Of about 1.7 million species globallydescribed and recorded in scientific literature, India hasabout 1,26,200 species. It ranks tenth in the world bothin respect of richness of flowering plants (17,000 species)and mammals (372 species). Of India’s 49,219 plantspecies, 1600 endemics (40% of the total number ofendemics) are found in a 17,000km 2 strip of forest alongthe seaward side of the Western Ghats in Maharashtra,Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.We know more about large, economically importantplants and animals than we do about fungi and bacteria,despite their important ecological roles. Microorganismshave had a tremendous influence on the availabilityof nutrients in soil through their weathering of rocksand on the composition of the earth’s atmosphere,especially the increase in greenhouse gases suchas carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Themicrobial diversity is getting degraded in the forests dueHosagoudarto forest fragmentation, loss of host plants due to fellingof trees, air pollutants, fungicides and alteration in themicroclimates, changes in the frequency of rainfall,droughts and over-exploitation of edible fungi. Theforest fragmentation leads to extinction of symbioticmicrobes that are host-specific and have poor dispersalabilities. Each year, hundreds of species are being losteven before they are known to the scientific world dueto their habitat destruction. Hence, we should facilitateinventory and monitoring programmes to detect, identifyand protect the microbial diversity.Since beginning of the study of fungi in India, bothmacro and micro fungi have been collected from theWestern Ghats from all the ecosystems. However, noneof the works are thorough to state the exact number offungi from any part of the Western Ghats. One can notbe blamed because the diversity is so vast that it needs agroup or team of experts to study the individual sanctuary,national park or any protected area continuously. Sincethere is degradation of forests every year, there is habitand habitat loss resulting in enormous loss of fungaldiversity before we know them. And since for everywork, needs a base to start, the present work starts inthis direction by providing the list of fungi published byme.The main and very purpose of this review is to bringout the taxonomic contents of my work in one place,which contains mainly foliicolous fungi of WesternGhats in addition to a few cooling tower fungi, fungi ofAndaman Islands and very few from other areas. Thiscan be used as a base. If other works are added, onecan bring out the total fungal diversity of Western Ghats.In the present work, I have considered my followingpublications including 11 books and manuals, onedata base and 391 publications in various national andinternational research journals.This review comprises 6059 entries from the reprintsgiving an account of 2084 fungal taxa belonging to 259genera on 2969 hosts/substrates. This is presented hereas: Introduction, list of publications, entries from thereprints, list of fungi, fungal genera and host/substratumfungusIndex.LIST of publicationsPapers published1. Hosagoudar, V.B. (1983). Teliospore abnormality in Pucciniaversicolor Diet. & Holw. Journal of Economic and Taxonomic Botany4: 983–984.2. Hosagoudar, V.B. (1984). A new rust on Elaeocarpus tuberculatusRoxb. from Idukki, Kerala, India. Current Science 53: 106–107.4134Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 18 May 2013 | 5(8): 4129–4348