Abundance of wood decay macrofungi in forest ecosystems with different management histories in the Kheyroud forest, Nowshahr, northern Iran

Aghajani, Hamed; Marvi Mohadjer, Mohammad Reza; Asef, Mohammad Reza; Shirvany, Anooshirvan

Abundance of wood decay macrofungi in forest ecosystems with different management histories in the Kheyroud forest, Nowshahr, northern Iran

Document Type : Scientific article

Authors

Hamed Aghajani ¹

Mohammad Reza Marvi Mohadjer ²

Mohammad Reza Asef ³

Anooshirvan Shirvany ⁴

¹ Ph.D. student of Silviculture and Forest ecology, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University, Sari

² Professor, Department of Forestry and Forest Economics, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj

³ Assistant Professor, Department of Plants, Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Tehran

⁴ Assistant Professor, Department of Forestry and Forest Economics, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the effects of forest management on the presence and abundance of macrofungi. Through a full inventory of all fungus-affected trees and removing the fungi from the trees in the sites under investigation, three of them having a long history of different forest management in the Kheyroud Forest were selected, i.e. one in Patom with three periods of tree marking, another in Namkhaneh with two and the other in Gorazbon with no tree marking. The results showed that the majority of the fungi could be found at the fifth level of tree categorization regarding their health, i.e. at the level of fallen dead wood (log, stump, branches and twigs). Ganoderma lucidum at 14 percent showed maximum abundance, whereas Cookeina at 0/008 the lowest. With regard to the area of the site under investigation, in hectare, the percentage of the fungi in Gorazbon, Namkhaneh and Patom were 1.22, 1.18, and 0.54%, respectively. It could finally be concluded that the percentage of the wood macrofungi in intact forests was more than managed ones.

Keywords

Fungal ecology

Wood decay

Forest protection

Forest management