Protocols for an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory of Fungi in a Costa Rican Conservation Area [Hardcover]

Rodham E. Tulloss (Author), Thomas E. O'Dell (Author), R. Greg Thorn (Author), Amy Y. Rossman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1997

Protocols for an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory of Fungi in a Costa Rican Conservation Area by A.Y. Rossman, R.E. Tulloss, T.E. O'Dell and R.G. Thorn is the result of a workshop that took place at the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica. At the workshop, a group of 25 mycologists from around the world met to design a project to sample all of the fungi in the ACG. The book is a how-to-manual for isolating and sampling fungi. The methods described in this book range from a double transect design for sampling mushrooms and large fungi over an extended period to procedures for isolating fungi from leaf litter and dung. It is a "cookbook" of recommended procedures that would result in locating fungi from most substrates. Many of the techniques described here, although aimed at sampling/isolating fungi in a tropical region, are applicable anywhere. Numerous references are included for isolating and characterizing the resulting fungi.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Amy Y. Rossman is Director of the U.S. National Fungus Collections and Research Leader of the USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory. She has collected, isolated and studied microfungi from tropical regions of the world. As Head of the Taxonomic Working Group for Fungi, she organized and lead the workshop in Guanacaste, Costa Rica at which plans and protocols for the all taxa biodiversity inventory for fungi were developed.

Rodham E. Tulloss is an expert in systematics of the mushroom genus Amanita, including species from Neotropical areas. With C.L. Ovrebo and R. E. Halling, he published the currently definitive work on Amanita in Andean Colombia and is now writing a similar work focused on species of Costa Rican oak forest with Halling and G. M. Mueller. Trained in mathematics and engineering, he has developed methods for analyzing similarity of data sets, e.g., from inventories of fungi.

Thomas E. O'Dell is the regional mycologist for the USDA Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently developing regional surveys for fungi associated with late successional habitats in order to effectively manage these areas and conserve their biodiversity. He has developed sampling strategies for macrofungal studies in the Olympic National Park of Washington and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and Long Term Ecological Research Site, Willamette National Forest, Oregon.

R. Greg Thorn is a visiting professor at the University of Wyoming. He has studied soil and litter decay fungi and their associations with nematodes, other invertebrates and bacteria. He has developed specialized isolation techniques for these fungi and is applying molecular methods to the study of their diversity, ecology and systematics in both temperate and tropical ecosystems.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 195 pages
• Publisher: Parkway Pub (December 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887905057
• ISBN-13: 978-1887905053
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,818,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very specialized and useful procedure book, September 25, 2001

By 

"arturo_nakasone" (Lima, Lima Peru) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Protocols for an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory of Fungi in a Costa Rican Conservation Area (Hardcover)

It is a very specialized book that covers in great detail inventory making procedures for biodiversity which includes all fungi taxonomical groups existing in a protected area of Costa Rica.

Even though the method selection foundations are not present, the names of the people who helped in the elaboration of methodology design are (all of them are specialists in different areas of fungi study), as well as their addresses, making it possible for the reader to contact them if he or she needs to know more about their work.

The book shows the inventory procedure job under a very interesting point of view. Not only does it limit to field technical aspects, but also considers management aspects, such as execution problems and function manuals of the researchers. It also includes a budget design and an integrated view of the whole study.

This book is doubtlessly very useful and maybe unique because there are very few publications related to fungi monitoring methods in tropical zones until now.