engleski

Biogeography and ecology of Tuber aestivum in Croatia

The Republic of Croatia is a small European country which spans to four different biogeographic regions and a large number of bio-climatic belts. Due to the significant differences between those, many forest habitats are developed within a small area. The initial results of the first ongoing comprehensive study on hypogeous mycorrhizal fungi in the forest ecosystems of Croatia, regarding a widespread commercial truffle species - Tuber aestivum, are presented here. The importance of commercial truffles in the Istrian peninsula (including T. aestivum) is summarized by Zgrablić et al. (2014a, 2014b). There are few earlier published records on hypogeous fungi in Croatia, starting with the pioneer work of Sella (1932). Although T. aestivum has been commercially exploited here for many decades, the available data remained scarce, often unreliable and thus scientifically unprocessed. The main aim of this research was to examine the biogeographic and ecological features as well as the distribution extent of T. aestivum within a frame of diversity of natural and seminatural habitat types in Croatia. The analysis of ca. 100 collections deposited in the Croatian National Fungarium (CNF) showed that T. aestivum is most common in native forests with Quercus ilex, Q. pubescens, Q. cerris, Carpinus orientalis, Ostrya carpinifolia in the Mediterranean region, and Fagus sylvatica, Carpinus betulus, Quercus petraea, Corylus avellana in the Continental region, developing mature fruitbodies mainly from May to December. The results of this research could provide reliable data about natural productivity of the species on a national scale for the first time. The nomenclature of T. aestivum is discussed.

Distribution ; native forests ; nomenclature ; truffles

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