Species richness of plants and fungi in western Panama: towards a fungal inventory in the tropics
In order to document the species richness of plants and fungi in a tropical area, a trail of 500 m in tropical lowlands in the Chiriquí province, on the Pacific side of western Panama, was sampled each month during 2 years with 2 h dedicated to plants and 2 h dedicated to fungi, each by two botanists or mycologists respectively. The 24 sampling events yielded approximately 4,000 records of plants corresponding to 311 species as well as 1,614 records of fungi corresponding to approximately 567 species. Lists of more or less certain names of plants and fungi as well as voucher specimens are provided. The randomized species accumulation curve for plants approaches an asymptote and estimators yield stable values of 310–318 predicted plant species in the area of investigation. The curve for records of fungal species, however, did not saturate and all applied estimator functions failed to predict the total richness of fungi for the area convincingly. Two plant collections correspond to new records for Panama and 54 species and infraspecific taxa are new for the Chiriquí province. The identification of fungi is still in process and yielded two species probably new to science as well as 17 new records of species for Panama to date. In order to assess biodiversity patterns (e.g. fungi to plant ratios) of tropical fungi more accurately, it is necessary to repeat such investigations in other areas and to improve the tools for taxonomic identification of these highly diverse but mostly microscopic organisms.