COPROPHILOUS FUNGI FROM CONFINED DEERS IN PAVIA (LOMBARDIA, ITALY)

Eighteen samples of fresh dungs were collected in spring time in arder to eslablish the presence of coprophilousfungi in a grol/pof deersconfined ina private park located near Pavia (Lombardia, Italy). A total of 40 genera and 5 7 species distributed in: 65 Zygomyeetes, 56 Aseomyeetes, 100 H.. .. phomyeetes and 2 Basidiomyeetes (11 = 223) was detected. Dominant species were: Mueor hiemalis, Graphium penicillioides, Fusarium verticillioides, Mueor raeemosus, Saeeobolus versieolor, Chaetomium bostryehodes and Doratomyees eolumnaris. It is also noted the diversity and density of some species in this kind of dungs and new records of some Aseomyeetes in this geographic area, such as: Aseodesmis sphaerospora, Coprotus diseulus, Sphaerodes fimieola, Zopfiel/a leueotrieha, Kernia nitida and Thelebolus erustaeeus are also mentioned.


INTRODUCTION
Coprophilous fungi play several roles in soil and grassland ecosystem, specially in the decomposition and núneralizationofherbivore feces (Angel & Wicklow,1975).The quantification, distribution and the structure of coprophilous community are related to different physiological, ecological and biogeographical features which are closely linked to the kind and composition of the substratum as well as to the surrounding terrestrial habitat (Sinh & Webster, 1973 ;Safar & Cooke, 1988 a,b;Kuthubutheen & Webster, 1986) The complexity of fecal-substrata is similar to soil sytems and exhibits a high degree.ofspatial and temporary
Italian contributions to the occurrenceand distribution of coprophilous fungi in animal dung remain scarse andlimited tocertaingroupofanimals. Data covering this country are still rare and referred to the mycota of rabbit dung from Piemonte (Vesco daletal ., 1967)and thefungal population colonizing the horse, goat and sheep dung in Lombardia (Caretta et al., 1994).
The present survey was therefore undertaken to acquire further taxonomic informations about the occurrence and diversity of coprophilous fungi from Roe deer dung confined to a same kind 9ffood in a 3.000 m 2 park located in thesuburbsofPavia (Lombardia).Anecological event which we considered interesting beca use of the unfrecuent association of this animals with a purely antropophilic habitat.

MATERIAL S AND METHODS
The dungs of 18 deers were collected in 1995 in the private park of S. Martino Siccomario a suburb ofPavia.Samples were collected in spring .These animals had been fed with hay, grass and cereal s, in particular maize, all year long.
Eighteen samples of fresh dung were singly collected in sterile containers in different park areas.Each sample wasdivided intothree subsamplesofapproximately equal size, and placed on moist blotting-paper in individual sterilePetri dishes.
Samples were incubated for 60 days at room te mperature (19-22 oC) and daily exposed 10 natural Iight.
Substratum moisture was maintained by periodic additions of sterile destilled water for up to 30 days.
Dung was inspected for fungal fructífications at regular intervals during this incubation periodo Isolations were usually attempted in 2 media, PDA and agar with decoction ofthe same deer feces .Moreover in most cases macroscopic and microscopic observations were carried out directIy in living material ofthe dung.
No attempt was made to count the total number of colonies of each species in a single Petri dish.Species occurring more than once over the three replica te dishes were counted as one occurrence.Portions of dung samples and slides of sorne fungal species are retainedat the Institute of Medical Mycology of Pavia . .The microscopic preparation of fungi were mounted in cotton-blue and lactophenol or simply lactophenol.
The total number of species developing on these feces was higher than in other study in the same geographical locality with different types of dung (Caretta et al, 1994) Most ofthe fungal groups exhibited fructifications usually abollt the 5 (Zygomycetes) to 10-25 days (Asco-Deuteromycetes and Basidiomycetes).Later on (30-60 days), only a few of them (Asco and Deuteromycetes) appeared when the moisture of the substratum fell due to the fact that the Petri dishes were not added sterile water.Main taxa were sorne ; Penidllium spp., Coprotus disculus, Kernia nitida; Theleholus crustaceus, Doratomyces stemonitis and Scopulariopsis brevicaulis.However many ofthem made their appearance from 10 to 20 days.This coincides with the influence ofthe activity ofwater in the sllccession of coprophilóus fungi described by Kuthubutheen & Webster (1986).
The mucoraceous and H.vphomycetes species are common of herbivore excrements of most animals, and may also occur on other types of decaying organic matter.
The presence of sorne of these fungi in deer dung, can be probably attributed to their ability to colonize the maize stored, one of the ingredients in the food for deers.
M.hiemalis the most dominant fungi isolated, is common in di1Jerent herbivorous feces (Harper & Webster, 1964, Dal Yesco et al, 1967), usually appear after 3-5 days incubation with their parasites, specially Chaetocladium brefeldii and in our case with Piptocephalis /epidula .It is also oue of the most comni.onand representative soil fungi and its competi tive ability, especiaIly in agricultural soil, is dlle to the fact that they genninate and grow rapidly when stimulated by soluble nutrients, being even able to excIude Trichoderma harziallum from specific habitat (Wardle et al. , 1993).Y ét as Shearer (1995), sta tes it this situations is surprising beca use the M u corales are considet:ed rselected ill1d poor coinpetitors.The scarse presence of T. harzia-w Table 1.Relative frecuency of total coprophilous fungi on fecal deer substrata  Coprophilolls jimgi in dllng from conjined deers -G.Caretla & E.Piontelli num, a species which is assumed to be not coprophilous can be explained by its appearance in the surrounding soil.
Dung is thusa mechanism for thedispersionofsome soil fungi, Iike F. verticillioides (=F.moniliforme) , one of the most prevalent field fungi occurring in a great variety of plant hosts.Their frequency in dung can be explained because itis oneofthe organisms associated with corn-based feeds and by the ability to adapt easily to this new ecological niche.Fusarium verticillioides , anamorph of Gibberella moniliformis, was found on horse dung (PionteIli et al. , 1981) and on cow dung (Dominik & Majchrowicz, 1970).It has been suspected of being involved in human and animal diseases and has been shown to be toxic for a varietyof experimental animals.(Kriek et al. , 1981 a, b).The new groupof mycotoxins, calIed fumonisins, was characterized in 1988 by Bezuidenhout et al.
Doratomyces coLumnaris, has been isolated by Swart (1967) on dung pelIets of ha res colIected in the MelvilIe Koppies Nature Reserve in Johannesburg.The main characteristic features on which the specific epithet isbased, uponarethevery short synnema tapped by a smaIl almostflat head, from which the conidia arise in a column.
D. columnaris in our study was the species occurring with significantly higher frecuency .In a previous study, this species was found on horse dung colIected in the province of Pavia, Lombardia (Caretta et al. , 1994).
Scopulariopsis species, anamorphs of Microascus, are commonly found on aH types of decaying organic materials; they are quite frequentIy isolated from soils.
Among the Ascomycetes on deer dung only sorne species were predominant: C. bostrychodes, SaccoboLus versicoLor and S. citrinus.
Chaetomium bostrychodes was present in abundance in a relatively high number of deer dung.This species has a cosmopolitan distribution with the principal substrata being dung, seeds, soil or animal hairs .
This fungus is able to decompose ceIlulose ( Vesco dal et al., 1967) and is of interest because of mycotoxin production.
Larvae of the sciarid fly LicoreLLa maLi avoided ascomata of Ch. bostrychodes that had growth on rabblt dung, but consumed the fmit bodies of other coexisting coprophilous fungi (Helsel & Wicklow, 1978).The presence of larvae of L. mali in rabbit dung decreased the number of sporulating species ofcoprophilousfungi, and increased the relative abundance of Ch. bostrychodes (Wicklow & Yocom, 1982).For Wicklow (1979,1988), Ch. bostrychoides has effective mechanical and chemical defenses against fungus feeding arthropods; this fact is related to the toxicity of Chaetoinium metabolites as chaetomin, chaetocins, chaetoglobosins and other metabolites (Udagawa et al., 1979, Udagawa, 1984).
Saccobolus versicolor is the most variable species of the genus Saccobolus (Brummelen, 1967).Apart from the variation in the shape and stmcture ofthe fmit -bodies, there is a considerable variation in pigmentation of these, ones the size of the ascospores and the variation of the episporium.For Brummelen (1967), it is impossible to distinguish moreor lessconstant forms within the species.
With regard to other fungal taxa found on the deer dung, sorne are known only or prevalently from dung as OedoceplzaLum glomerulosum, Stilbella erytroceplzala or Sy"ceplzalis cornu (Jeffries & Kirk, 1976), others are interesting speciesasMortierellareticulataandPhycomyces blakesleanus.These rarely colIected fungi teII us Iittle about their habitat, but sometimes from these few findings, valuable ecological data can be extracted.
Another interesting species recorded on deer dWlg and native of Europe, was Z.leucotricha (= Tipterospora leucotricJza (Speg) Lundq.).OriginalIy this fungus was colIected by Spegazzini (1878) on roUen branches of Sambucus nigra from Conegliano, Venezia, Italy and named SON/aria leucotricJra.AII the synonyms species examined by Lundqvist (1969), were found on various herbaceous material and seeds.On dung this species was not known.A synopsis of the genus Zopfiella and generic delimitation of Zopfiella, Podospora and Tripterospora was proposed by Guarro et al. , 1991.Many of coprophilous fungi found in the present study, were Iisted by various autIlOrsondeer dung and the feces of other animals (Lundqvist, 1972;Richardson, 1972;Parker, 1979;BelI, 1983).
BeIl & Mahoney (1995), have observed that the dung from domesticated animals that receive regular intestinal drenches to rid them of internal parasites, shows a disappointing lack of fungi growing on it.