This study found that: (1) the four woody substrata supported
different, but to some degree, overlapping wood-inhabiting
macrofungi; (2) macrofungal species richness on CWD was
affected by surface area; (3) dead wood of all sizes and in all
stages of decay supported a large and diverse assemblage of
saproxylic macrofungal species, making it important to
maintain an array of dead wood in different sizes and decay
classes in native wet eucalypt forest; and (4) the ‘Pomaderris’,
‘Rainforest’ and ‘Monotoca’ forest types had significantly
different macrofungal species assemblages both on the
combined woody substrata and on CWD, which may reflect
the influence of their different stand compositions.
Although wood in the wet E. obliqua forests of southern
Tasmania supports very diverse macrofungal assemblages,
the true diversity of all higher wood-inhabiting fungi, as
defined by Webster (2007), is still unknown. The results of the
present study represent a snapshot in the lifetime of these
forests, providing benchmark data on wood-inhabiting fungi.
These data can be used in more extensive wide-ranging
studies to investigate the effects of decreasing areas of old
native forests and the large-scale reduction in the amount of
dead wood due to natural disturbance such as wildfire, land
clearing for agriculture and urban development, and intensive
forest management