Host Specialization among Wood-Decay Polypore Fungi in a Caribbean Mangrove Forest1

Host specialization in highly diverse tropical forests may be limited by the low local abundance of suitable hosts. To address whether or not fungi in a low‐diversity tropical forest were released from this restriction, fruiting bodies of polypore basidiomycete fungi were collected from three species of mangroves (Avicennia germinans, Laguncularia racemosa, and Rhizophora mangle) in a Caribbean mangrove forest in Panama. Unlike other tropical forests, the polypore assemblage in this mangrove forest was strongly dominated by a few host‐specialized species. Three fungal species, each with strong preference for a different mangrove host species, comprised 88 percent of all fungi collected.