Biodiversity Studies on Macro Fungi with Special Reference to Order Agaricales: Indian Scenario

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com habitats and ecosystem around the globe [1]. Macrofungi are important economically due to their importance in food, medicine, bio-control, chemical, biological and other industries [2]. Although the macrofungi are an integral part of a given ecosystem, their diversity and types are poorly studied, with a particular knowledge gap in the tropical regions including India [3]. Macro fungi are diverse in their uses as food and medicine and several species serve as decomposers and also form mycorrhizal associations [4]. Taxonomists describe about 1 lakh species of fungi, but till now the fungal global biodiversity is not fully understood [5]. About 1.5 million fungi have been projected on earth surface [6]. Of these, approx 5-7% of the fungi are described till now [7,8]. Agaricales are considered cosmopolitan fungi. They grow easily in a wide variety of habitats, from the Artic to the Tropics. While some are limited to specific areas, others grow in geographically dispersed areas. In ecologically defined areas, mushrooms have preferences for specific substrates. The wide variety of habitats colonized by these fungi and substrates they extract from the soil shows that Agaricales order includes saprophytic, symbiotic, and parasitic species. Chemical substances existing in mushrooms may change according to the soil and climate of the region in which they grow. Knowledge of Agaricales morphology is fundamentally important in the taxonomy of these basidiomycetes and for understanding their physiological and phylogenetic aspects. Morphology is studied at four levels: macroscopic, microscopic, ultra-structure, and molecular biology. The order Agaricales comprises of 3 suborders, 17 families, 230 genera and approximately 5000 species, systematic study of the members of Agaricales were neglected in India as compared to other groups of fungi. They are an integral component of nutrient and elemental cycling of the global ecosystem. Immunomodulatory, antitumor, and antiproliferative effects of lectin isolated from various types of Agaricaceae mushrooms have been demonstrated by Zhao C & Priyamvada H [9,10] worked on Terrestrial Macrofungal Diversity in Tropical Dry Evergreen Biome of Southern India and Its Potential Role in Aerobiology.