Diversity of soil microscopic fungi on abandoned industrial deposits

Diversity of saprotrophic soil micromycetes was studied in the period 1993-95 on an abandoned ore-washery settling pit near Chvaletice and on an ash-slag settling pit near Opatovice in the eastern Bohemia (Czech Republic). Deposits on both localities contain higher amounts of metals (esp. Mn and Zn). Despite of a rather toxic character of the studied sites, altogether 108 taxa of soil microfungi were recorded (70 species of Deuteromycetes, 25 of Zygomycota, and 13 of Ascomycota). The most frequent soil microfungi were Penicillium janthinellum, P. simplicissimum, Cunninghamella elegans, Paecilomyces lilacinus, Trichoderma spp., Mucor hiemalis f. hiemalis, Coniothyrium fuckelii, Mortierella alpina, Fusarium spp., Coemansia aciculifera, and Trichoderma virens. Four fungi, new in the Czech Republic, were discovered: Gelasinospora calospora, Rhopalomyces elegans var. apiculatus, Syncephalis sphaerica, and Westerdykella dispersa. Some specimens of soil micromycetes are maintained in the Culture Collection of Fungi (CCF), Prague.