Abstract
Fungi from tropical regions are currently under-represented in the classification system. Indeed, difficult access to tropical forests makes it complicated to study fungus species in such environments, unlike in European zones where fungal diversity and taxonomy are much better known. The purposes of this work were: a) to enhance classification by integrating new data that would bring out the importance of certain traits of these fungi, and provide a clearer understanding of how the biodiversity of fungi from the forest ecosystems of French Guiana is organized, particularly those causing wood decay through white rot, brown rot or soft rot; b) to establish a collection of fungal isolates from fruiting bodies collected in French Guiana.This taxonomic study based on sequences of the small subunit (SSU) of ribosomal (r) DNA using the two primer pairs, SR6/SR10R and SR7/SR1R, was carried out on 39 fungus fruiting bodies from Cacao and Régina, in French Guiana. Our protocol enabled extraction, with good repeatability, of fungal DNA from a few mg of pure mycelium. With most of the strains studied we were able to obtain PCR products ranging in size from 376 to 625 base pairs.This study enabled to specify the taxa involved wood decay: 39 species were identified by BlastN. Most of them, in the class of the Basidiomycetes, were the main genera were found, such as Antrodia, Coriolopsis, Fomitopsis, Ganoderma,Poria, Lentinus, Pycnoporus, Auricularia, Gloeophyllum, Trametes, Fomitopsis, Rigidoporus.In addition to the above objectives, the production of pure mycelium from fruiting bodies identified in this study will be used to produce inoculum to test the ability of these fungal species in stimulating oleoresin production in Aquilaria trees from plantation established in French Guyana;