Mushrooms in the Atlantic Forest: diversity and potential of edible species

Abstract

Commonly known as mushrooms, macroscopic fungi represent about 22,000 species of ecological, economic and medicinal importance, including several edible species also considered as functional food giving its nutritional value and benefits to human health. Despite the large diversity of macrofungi, the cultivation and commercialization of edible mushrooms in Brazil, although growing in the last decade, reaching 1,062 tons of mushrooms per month, is still restricted to the use of isolates from countries of temperate climate and limited to only few species. The use of isolates not adapted to our climatic conditions results in a high production cost to maintain the low temperatures during growth. Despite the historical records of mushrooms used as food by Amazonian indigenous populations, little is known about the occurrence of edible mushrooms in Atlantic Forest areas. Knowledge about wild mushrooms species can be very promising for diversity and cultivation studies aiming to a future insertion in the domestic market of edible mushrooms. Considering this, the present project aims to know the edible mushrooms and related species occurring in Atlantic Forest areas, and to study its cultivation potentialities. For this, it will be realized collection of edible mushrooms in Atlantic Forest areas in the state of São Paulo. After taxonomical identification through morphological and molecular characters, the mushrooms will be isolated in culture medium to evaluate the main parameters that are important to commercial mushrooms cultivation, such as: mycelial growth rate, enzymatic activity, adaptability to the cultivation substrate, cultivation potential and nutritional composition. Research on the potential of wild mushroom cultivation can contribute to the knowledge of macrofungi diversity in the country and lead to the discovery of isolates with higher productivity and more adapted to local conditions. (AU)