Keys to Fungi on DungRichardson, M. J. (Michael J.)
Science
Keys to Fungi on Dung
Richardson, M. J. (Michael J.)
Fungi -- Identification
Four keys are presented. Keys 1 and 2 (MJR) are to the coprophilous
ascomycetes, a very diverse group which, although not covering all the
possible types of reproductive structure found in the class, contains many
of the important types. The information for the identification of these
fungi is dispersed throughout the literature, and many new species are
still being discovered and described. Some appear to be world-wide in their
distribution, others more restricted, with a prevalence of reports from
either arctic, temperate or tropical regions. These keys are not
exhaustive, since there are far too many species to make it practical to
include them all. They do, however, include most genera, and the commoner
or well known species of temperate regions. Specific (and even generic)
limits in some cases (e.g. _Coprotus_ / _Ascophanus_ / _Ryparobius_ /
_Thelebolus_) are still the subject of debate and the choice of names to
use in the key for a few taxa has been a compromise. Key 2 includes the
original 'plectomycete' key (RW), which contains fungi which may not be
strictly coprophilous in the normal sense, but fungi which occur on hair,
horn, bone and cadavers, and may thus be found on carnivore dung or pellets
of owls and other birds of prey.
Key 3 (RW, p. 52) is to the basidiomycetes of dung and associated debris.
The part of the key dealing with the agarics attempts to be as complete as
possible. Since the toadstools have always been thought of as the best
known of the coprophilous fungi, attention to their taxonomy has often been
careless. In this key the opportunity has been taken to adopt a rather
narrow species concept, and to provide in certain places indications of
where distinct taxa, even autonomous species, may be found after further
laboratory work. Many of these types have been cultured and appear to
differ vegetatively in ways which support observations of gross morphology.
Coprophilous agarics are popular material for genetic studies and
additional information on veil structure, spore number etc. of individual
species is given, even when these are not 'key characters'.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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