BackgroundMany fungal species in tropical Africa are useful, with high added value, and play essential roles in the structure and dynamic of ecosystems. However, the diversity, distribution, and uses by local populations of these non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and their respective habitats are still very poorly understood in sub-Saharan Africa in general and more specifically in Côte d’Ivoire. This study aims at (i) inventorying the wild useful mushrooms of Côte d’Ivoire within its major protected areas and their respective surrounding sociolinguistical groups, according to climatic and phytogeographical gradients, and (ii) recording ethnomycological knowledge and considerations of these local people.MethodsField and ethnomycological surveys were conducted in the main and highest protected areas of Côte d’Ivoire (Comoé, Marahoué, and Taï national parks) and a set of their respective surrounding villages, along climatic and phytogeographical gradients. Standardized methods (permanent plots and opportunistic searches) were used for field surveys. In addition, a total 748 respondents belonging to 13 ethnic groups were interviewed at a rate of 300 interviewees during the preliminary investigations and 448 persons during the proper ethnomycological surveys.ResultsSixty-eight useful wild fungal species, belonging to 17 families and 23 genera, were listed and collected. Four categories of usage were reported by the rural people (food, medicinal, belief and recreational), with a dominance of food and medicinal uses. Fifty-six species were reported to be used as food and 16 species as medicinal fungi. These uses varied not only from one sociolinguistical group to another but also from a visited village to another. The high number (41) of the reported useful species was found in the Sudano-Guinean savanna zone while 28 species were collected in the forest zone and 22 species in the forest-savanna mosaic zone. These mushrooms were either saprotrophic or symbiotic (ectomycorrhizal or termitophilic). Auricularia sp3, Psathyrella tuberculata, and Termitomyces spp. were found as the most commonly used mushrooms.ConclusionsThese national scale field and ethnomycological surveys give one of the more complete but non-exhaustive list of useful mushrooms of Côte d’Ivoire. Mushrooms are relatively well known and used by the Ivorian people within the main phytogeographical zone of the country. These people also have an interest in all the functional groups with an important phytogeographical zone-fungal-specific used species. However, protected areas of the visited zones seem to represent the last sanctuaries of these organisms due to high rate of loss of natural habitats.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13002-019-0284-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The mutualistic symbiosis between termites of the Macrotermitinae subfamily (Isoptera: Termitidae) and fungi of the genus Termitomyces (Basidiomycota: Lyophyllaceae) is of great ecological and socio-economic importance. Seasonal fruit bodies of the symbiotic fungi are regularly collected and sold in Côte d’Ivoire. However, there are very few studies on their diversity, phenology, distribution and especially the socio-economic scope of the fruit bodies of these fungi at a national scale. This study aims at (i) assessing the diversity of Termitomyces fruit bodies in Côte d’Ivoire and (ii) mapping their fructification areas through a determination of their spatiotemporal distribution according to a climatic and phytogeographic gradients. Using ethnomycological surveys all over the Ivorian territory, information was collected from rural populations on the fructification of Termitomyces and their socio-economic importance. Based on these surveys, sampling efforts of these fungi were properly structured and oriented. The results revealed a diversity of 16 species of Termitomyces, including 9 species new to Côte d’Ivoire and 2 probably new to science. Five species were found in the forest zone, nine in theGuinean savannah zone and four in the Sudano-Guinean zone. Termitomyces’s fructifications were observed throughout the year, with specific period for each species. All listed species are regularly consumed by populations. However, only Termitomyces letestui (Pat.) R. Heim and Termitomyces schimperi (Pat.) R. Heim are marketed on a relatively large scale.

Forests and woodlands in the West African Guineo-Sudanian transition zone contain many tree species that form symbiotic interactions with ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi. These fungi facilitate plant growth by increasing nutrient and water uptake and include many fruiting body-forming fungi, including some edible mushrooms. Despite their importance for ecosystem functioning and anthropogenic use, diversity and distribution of ECM fungi is severely under-documented in West Africa. We conducted a broad regional sampling across five West African countries using soil eDNA to characterize the ECM as well as the total soil fungal community in gallery forests and savanna woodlands dominated by ECM host tree species. We subsequently sequenced the entire ITS region and much of the LSU region to infer a phylogeny for all detected soil fungal species. Utilizing a long read sequencing approach allows for higher taxonomic resolution by using the full ITS region, while the highly conserved LSU gene allows for a more accurate higher-level assignment of species hypotheses, including species without ITS-based taxonomy assignments. We detect no overall difference in species richness between gallery forests and woodlands. However, additional gallery forest plots and more samples per plot would have been needed to firmly conclude this pattern. Based on both abundance and richness, species from the families Russulaceae and Inocybaceae dominate the ECM fungal soil communities across both vegetation types. The community structure of both total soil fungi and ECM fungi was significantly influenced by vegetation types and showed strong correlation within plots. However, we found no significant difference in fungal community structure between samples collected adjacent to different host tree species within each plot. We conclude that within plots, the fungal community is structured more by the overall ECM host plant community than by the species of the individual host tree that each sample was collected from.

Objective: Macrofungi are essential to the structure, functioning and dynamics of ecosystems. In Côte d'Ivoire, studies on macrofungi and the impact of habitats in “Centre National de Floristique (CNF)” on macrofungi diversity are little explored. This study aims to assess macrofungi diversity found in some habitats in the botanical garden. Methodology and results: A mycological inventory was carried out in three habitat types that differ in the level of anthropisation. The surveys were conducted from 2016 to 2018 during rainy seasons, from MayJuly and October- November and sporophores of 151 morpho-species were collected. They belonged to 5 classes, 12 orders, 26 families and 33 genera. The most abundant species belonging to the Agaricaceae (19.87%) followed by Marasmiaceae (10.60%) and Polyporaceae (9.27%) families. The dominant ecological groups were saprotrophic fungi (82.00%). Specific richness was more important in the least visited habitat with 70 species inventoried, followed by the non-visited and the most visited habitat with 54 and 50 species respectively. Conclusion and application of results: This first investigation on macrofungi showed that CNF is rich in saprotrophic fungi belonging at the Agaricaceae, Marasmiaceae and Polyporaceae family. These saprotrophic fungi have the ecological importance in the forest ecosystem management and conservation. Ours finding constitute a database for the future studies on the mycoflora of the botanical garden. These initial data show the importance of botanical garden in the conservation and biodiversity of mycological resources. Keywords: Macrofungi, Diversity, Botanical garden, Centre National de Floristique (CNF), Côte d'Ivoire