Fungal Diversity and Its Relevance for Forests Sustainable Management and Biotechnology Applications in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico

Results showed the presence of 425 species of macro fungi and 96 families in natural forest, Ascomycetes had 19 families and 41 species, 4 species are edible and 1 medicinal; the Basidiomycetes had 78 families and 384 species, and 50 species are edible, 6 medicinal, 65 toxic, 4 hallucinogenic and 3 bioluminescent. Regarding life forms Ascomycetes had 24 species saprotroph, 13 parasites and 1 mycorrhizal. Basidiomycetes had 229 saprotroph species, 119 mycorrhizal and 34 parasitic. Pure culture growth of 110 species was measured, saprotroph species grew 3.5 cm, mycorrhizal 0.7 cm and parasitic species 0.4 cm at 7 days from incubation. The Kruskall-Wallis analysis showed significant differences in the average growth of the species groups (p< 0.05). A pairwise analysis, after the Kruskall-Wallis, showed that growth of saprotrophs was significantly greater than mycorrhizal and parasitic species; the last two groups were not significantly different. Native edible strains of Pleurotus dejamour and Hericium erinaceus were grown and had statistically significant differences (P<0.05) for fruiting bodies production.