Diversity of coprophilous ascomycetes from captive wild animals in Dois Irmaos State Park, Brazil

Twenty-two species of coprophilous ascomycetes were identified from 216 samples of dung from confined paca, tapir, deer, llama, camel and waterbuck collected in the Parque Estadual Dois Irmaos, Recife, Brazil. Members of Ascobolaceae and Chaetomiaceae showed the higher number of occurrences, and Lasiosphaeriaceae the largest number of species present. The genus Saccobolus proved to be the most representative, and Saccobolus saccoboloides was dominant, followed by Saccobolus citrinus,Chaetomium bostrychodes, and Thielavia terrestris. Camel dung showed higher species diversity, and llama dung had higher number of ocurrences. Tapir dung proved unfavorable to the sampling of ascomycetes. The community showed high diversity (H' = 2.54), homogeneous distribution (J = 0.82), and substrate preferences tending to generalism (B = 4.64). The communities in deer and waterbuck dung and in camel and llama dung showed, in pairs, the largest similarity, probably due to the diet similarity. The mycobiota of paca and waterbuck dung showed no similarity, and the mycobiota in tapir dung showed no similarity to any other. The communities studied showed low temporal increase in species composition throughout the year, with high diversity and frequent sampling of rare species, no significant relation between digestive system type and a significant difference between substrate and month of collection.