Journal of the Lundy Field Society, 2, 2010 LUNDY FUNGI: FURTHER SURVEYS 2004-2008 by JOHN N. HEDGER1, J. DAVID GEORGE2, GARETH W. GRIFFITH3, DILUKA PEIRIS1 1School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, 115 New Cavendish Street, London, W1M 8JS 2Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD 3Institute of Biological Environmental and Rural Sciences, University of Aberystwyth, SY23 3DD Corresponding author, e-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT The results of four five-day field surveys of fungi carried out yearly on Lundy from 2004-08 are reported and the results compared with the previous survey by ourselves in 2003 and to records made prior to 2003 by members of the LFS. 240 taxa were identified of which 159 appear to be new records for the island. Seasonal distribution, habitat and resource preferences are discussed. Keywords: Fungi, ecology, biodiversity, conservation, grassland INTRODUCTION Hedger & George (2004) published a list of 108 taxa of fungi found on Lundy during a five-day survey carried out in October 2003. They also included in this paper the records of 95 species of fungi made from 1970 onwards, mostly abstracted from the Annual Reports of the Lundy Field Society, and found that their own survey had added 70 additional records, giving a total of 156 taxa. They concluded that further surveys would undoubtedly add to the database, especially since the autumn of 2003 had been exceptionally dry, and as a consequence the fruiting of the larger fleshy fungi on Lundy, especially the grassland species, had been very poor, resulting in under-recording. Further five-day surveys were therefore carried out each year from 2004-08, three in the autumn, 8-12 November 2004, 4-9 November 2007, 3-11 November 2008, one in winter, 23-27 January 2006 and one in spring, 9-16 April 2005.