Tropical forests cover approximately 6% of the land surface of the earth and more than 30% of all forested areas on the entire planet. These forests are characterized by a very high level of diversity for the assemblages of organisms present. The overall diversity of tropical forests is higher than that of any other type of terrestrial ecosystem, yet the fungi and fungus-like organisms (basidiomycetes, ascomycetes, myxomycetes, and dictyostelids) associated with tropical forests remain understudied.
Diversity of Fungi and Fungus-Like Organisms in Tropical Forests brings together information on these organisms obtained by scientists who are actively carrying out research in every region of the world where tropical forests occur. Among the major subject areas considered are ecology, biogeography, and taxonomy. Furthermore, information is provided on the use of certain fungi as food for humans and the potential of some fungi as sources of products of economic, pharmaceutical, or medical value.
This book will be of great interest to students, teachers, and all who wish to learn more about the fungi and fungus-like organisms associated with tropical forests around the world.
Steven L. Stephenson retired from the University of Arkansas in 2023, where he was a research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and taught at Fairmont State University for 27 years before moving to the University of Arkansas. During his academic career, he has been a senior Fulbright scholar at Himachal University in India, a visiting scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division, and the William Evans visiting fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He also has received Fulbright Specialist awards to India and Vietnam. Stephenson has carried out research on eumyce-tozoans and fungi in the forests of India, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Peru, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. He is the author or coauthor of more than 500 papers and 20 books on eumy-cetozoans, fungi, and various aspects of ecology.
Samantha Chandranath Karunarathna is a professor at the Center for Yunnan Plateau Biological Resources Protection and Utilization in the College of Biological Resource and Food Engineering of Qujing Normal University, Qujing, Yunnan, People's Republic of China. Karunarathna has vast experience in fungal taxonomy, phylogeny, and their economic importance. He has published over 300 SCI papers related to fungal taxonomy and phylogeny. He also received Yunnan Talent and Friendship Awards in 2022 and was recognized as one of the world's top 2% scientists in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, according to rankings by Stanford University.
Changlin Zhao works in the College of Forestry at the Southwest Forestry University of the People's Republic of China. Currently, his research is focused on the taxonomy and phylogeny of wood-decaying fungi (Basidiomycota). He received a Ph.D. degree from Beijing Forestry University (2016), studied evolutionary biology at Harvard University as a joint Ph.D. during 2014 and 2015, and worked at Tsinghua University as a senior visiting scholar from 2021 to 2022. He is the first author or corresponding author of more than 150 publications and five books (as first editor) in mycology.
Arun Kumar Dutta is currently working as an assistant professor of botany at Gauhati University, Assam, India. Prior to this position, he worked at West Bengal State University as a DST-Inspire Faculty Fellow. Dutta has received numerous prestigious awards, including the ISCA Young Scientist Award for 2017-2018 given by the Indian Science Congress Association (Section: Plant Sciences) and the DST-Inspire Faculty Award of the Department of Science and Technology, India, in the fields of plant, animal, and agricultural sciences (2018). He earned his Ph.D. in botany with a specialization in mycology from the University of Calcutta, West Bengal, India, in 2017. Dutta began his research career by investigating the diversity of marasmioid and gymnopoid fungi of West Bengal, utilizing both morphological and molecular characteristics. Currently, his research focuses on the molecular systematics of wild edible macrofungi in Eastern India and examining their potential as nutraceuticals. To date, he is the author of 100 peer-reviewed papers in national and international journals.
