INFLUENCE OF HABITAT ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND METABOLIC DIVERSITY OF FUNGI

It is well known that there are variations in secondary metabolite production between different isolates of the same species of fungus in different habitats and geographic locations. What is less well known, however, is how much intrinsic variability in secondary metabolite production exists between different isolates of the same species within a particular habitat. The theory of adaptive polymorphism predicts that populations occupying wide ecological niches show greater variation than populations occupying narrow niches. As a test of this theory the influence of the habitat variability on the physiological and metabolic diversity of fungi occupying that habitat is reported using examples from the literature and from the author's own work with fungi colonizing wood in deserts of the southwest U.S.A.