Improved Understanding of the Macrofungal Diversity of Mongolia: Species Richness, Conservation Status, and An Annotated Checklist

Abstract

In this study, we updated and revised the checklist of macrofungi, along with the distribution of phytogeographical regions and the regional conservation status in Mongolia. The checklist comprises 677 macrofungal species belonging to 284 genera and 119 families in the country. Based on previous studies, 18 species are currently invasive to Mongolia. In this checklist, only four species are endemic to Mongolia. Among the 677 species, the regional conservation status of 51 species was previously assessed as threatened in the country. Furthermore, we collected all available occurrence records from various sources. A total of 4733 occurrences of 655 species across Mongolia were analyzed for species richness based on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid cell size. We found the records to be unevenly distributed across Mongolia, where records from the northern and central parts dominate. Among these, we identified 43 grids with a high diversity of macrofungal species. Most of these grids did not reside inside by protected geographical areas.

Keywords:

• Checklist
• fungi
• species richness
• hotspots
• occurrence record
• conservation

Author contributions

Project administration: HJC and SYO. Writing – original draft: SB. Data curation: NK, GB, and MU. Data analysis: SB, NK, GB, and ZT. Revising and editing: SB, TB, SKH, SYO, and HJC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Korea National Arboretum (Grant Number: KNA1-2-42, 22-2) and Korea Basic Science Institute (National Research Facilities and Equipment Center) grant funded by the Ministry of Education (Grant No. 2023R1A6C101B022).