Morphological Diversity of Pilobolus Fungi on Herbivore Dung at the Pwani University Farm

Abstract

The Pilobolus fungi is a dung (coprophilous) fungus found in the Pilobolaceae family under order Mucorales with several species like the Pilobolus crystallinus, Pilobolus kleinii, Pilobolus roridus, Pilobolus pullus, Pilobolus umbonatus among others. Generally, the species in this family have a widespread distribution as a manure-dwelling fungus that grows on herbivore dung. This fungus functions as a saprotroph living and feeding on dead and decaying organic materials in herbivore dung. Pilobolus species are grouped under the class Zygomycetes. They are important to the ecosystem as they play a part in recycling nutrients in the herbivore dung, hence making the dung more nutritious and beneficial to the ecosystem. This study seeks to assess the morphological diversity of Pilobolus fungi in domestic herbivore dungs at Pwani University farm. Dung from at least 10% of cows, donkeys and goats were pooled, separately for each animal species, and incubated for seven days before being observed under microscopy for fungi identification. A total of four Pilobolus fungal species were observed namely Pilobolus crystallinus, Pilobolus kleinii, Pilobolus umbonatus and Pilobolus lentiger. P. crystallinus was the most dominant species and P. lentiger, the least. The highest diversity was observed in cow dung with Simpson’s Diversity index (D) of 2.023, followed by goat (D = 1.916) and donkey (D = 1.167) dungs. Results indicate that cow and goat dung environmental favor growth of most of the fungal species compared to donkey dung which seemed to be the least favorable. This might be because of the difference in coprogen compositions that impacts fungal growth seemingly being higher in cow and goat dung compared to donkey dung. There is need to undertake additional research using molecular techniques.