Abstract

A pilot survey of communities of wood-inhabiting polypores was made in intact natural forest landscapes of northwestern Russian Karelia. These communities were compared with those of fragmented, mostly seminatural old-growth forests of adjacent regions in Finland. In both areas, wood-inhabiting fungi were studied in nine randomly situated study plots of 0.5 hectares, including over 3500 logs and dead standing trees. Altogether 67 polypore species were found. Species richness and community compositions in the two study areas were compared. Overall community compositions do not differ considerabely, but the Russian Karelian sample plots had significantly higher species richness and more threatened and indicator species were found there. The results indicate that polypore populations in Finnish old-growth forests suffer either from habitat degradation or fragmentation, or both. Two methods are suggested for using wood-inhabiting fungi as evaluating biodiversity values in managed forests.

Key words: Basidiomycetes, biodiversity, boreal forest, ecology, fragmentation, landscape ecology, old-growth forest, polypores, wood-inhabiting fungi

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