Mexico is an important global reservoir of biological and cultural richness and traditional knowledge of wild mushrooms. However, there is a high risk of loss of this knowledge due to the erosion of traditional human cultures which is related with the rapid acculturation linked to high migration of rural populations to cities and the U.S.A., and the loss of natural ecosystems. The Mixtec people, the third largest native group in Mexico only after the Nahua and the Maya, maintain ancient traditions in the use and knowledge of wild mushrooms. Paradoxically, there are few studies of the Mixtec ethnomycology. This study shows our ethnomycological research, mainly focused on knowledge and use of wild mushrooms in communities of the Mixteca Alta, in southeastern Mexico. We hypothesized that among the studied communities those with a combination of higher vegetation cover of natural pine and oak forests, lower soil erosion and higher economic margination had a greater richness and knowledge of wild mushrooms. Our study therefore aimed to record traditional knowledge, use, nomenclature and classification of wild mushrooms in four Mixtec communities and to analyze how these aspects vary according to environmental and cultural conditions among the studied communities. In order to analyze the cultural significance of wild mushrooms for the Mixtec people, 116 non-structured and semi-structured interviews were performed from 2009 to 2014. Information about the identified species, particularly the regional nomenclature and classification, their edibility, toxicity and ludic uses, the habitat of useful mushrooms, traditional recipes and criteria to differentiate between toxic and edible species, and mechanisms of knowledge transmission were studied. The research had the important particularity that the first author is Mixtec, native of the study area. A comparative qualitative analysis between the richness of fungal species used locally and the official information of the natural vegetation cover, soil erosion and economic marginalization in each of the studied communities was conducted. A total of 106 species of mushrooms were identified growing in pine and oak forest, deciduous tropical forest and grassland; among the identified mushrooms we recorded 26 species locally consumed, 18 considered toxic, 6 having ludic uses and the remaining 56 species not being used in the studied areas but some of them having potential as food (56 species) or medicine (28 species). We recorded that 80, 22 and 4 species are ectomycorrhizal, saprotrophic and parasites, respectively. Our study shows that a complex and accurate knowledge related with the use, nomenclature, classification, ecology, gastronomy of wild mushrooms has been developed by Mixtecs; and that there is a relation between natural vegetation cover, lower soil erosion and higher economic marginalization and richness, knowledge and use of mushrooms in the studied communites. Our study showed that conservation and adaptation of ancestral mycological knowledge survives mainly through oral transmition, maintenance of cultural identity, forest protection, preservation native language and also paradoxically through the current socieconomical marginality among the Mixtec people. We also found that those studied communities with a combination of higher vegetation cover of natural pine and oak forests, lower soil erosion and higher economic marginalization showed a greater richness and knowledge of wild mushrooms. Use and sustainable management of wild mushrooms can be an alternative for local integrated development, but local knowledge and traditional worldview should be included into the regional programs of Mixtec biocultural conservation.

Aim of study: To document for the first-time the biocultural knowledge related to the use, nomenclature, and classification of wild mushrooms by the Mazatec culture, cradle of the ethnomycology. Area of study: Municipality of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón and communities of San José Buena Vista and Agua Ancha, belonging to the state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Materials and methods: A total of 291 interviews were performed by using numerical ethnomycological methods, during the rainy seasons, between 2017 and 2021. Based on the knowledge of local experts, fungal specimens with biocultural relevance were collected. Socio-demographic information, knowledge of wild mushrooms and their usages, local nomenclature, culinary uses, and transmission of traditional knowledge were documented. Main results: Paradoxically, this is the first ethnomycological study that addresses a complete study of fungi with biocultural importance in the ethnic group where ethnomycology emerged as a discipline. Previous studies related to mushrooms with Mazatec people focused exclusively on entheogenic mushrooms leaving aside paramount issues related to traditional mycological knowledge of the fungal local resources, including their edibility and cultural relevance. All interviewees consumed mushrooms, indicating high levels of mycophilia. Twenty-seven species, all of them having a native Mazatec name, were identified. Species of Pleurotus, Auricularia, Cantharellus, and Schizophyllum spp. showed the highest cultural value indexes. Research highlights: Ethnomycological knowledge of Mazatec culture is prolific and related to local natural resources cosmovision, beliefs and traditions. Mycological knowledge is currently preserved among Mazatec people and it is still transmitted to new generations despite strong transculturation processes.

Antecedentes: Los estudios etnomicológicos realizados en la región mazateca, al norte del estado de Oaxaca, México, se han enfocado principalmente a especies del género Psilocybe por su importancia ceremonial y de sanación entre los mazatecos de la parte alta. En contraste, el conocimiento y las percepciones locales del uso de otras especies con importancia biocultural y vocablos relacionados a las especies fúngicas, han recibido escasa atención. Objetivo: Registrar los vocablos y nomenclatura local relacionada con las especies fúngicas con importancia biocultural para los habitantes de la comunidad mazateca de Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, estado de Oaxaca. Metodología: Se realizaron entrevistas estructuradas, semiestructuradas y no estructuradas, recorridos y recolectas de material fúngico en campo durante la época de lluvia de 2017 al 2021. Resultados y conclusiones: Se registraron 116 vocablos relacionados con el recurso micológico en la comunidad desde la cosmovisión mazateca. Dicha nomenclatura se asocia a 27 especies de hongos silvestres con importancia biocultural en la comunidad de estudio. Este estudio documenta que un rico conocimiento micológico pervive a pesar de los fuertes procesos de transculturación a los cuales actualmente es sometida la comunidad mazateca.

The Tula watershed in Mexico, located in a semiarid and sub-humid climate zone, is experiencing intensive population growth, the expansion of mining concessions for construction materials, and agricultural and urban development, resulting in the degradation of soils and vegetation and a greater demand on natural resources. The aims of this study were to evaluate the survival rates and identify potential habitats within the Tula watershed for planting three non-native forage species (Atriplex canescens, Cynodon dactylon, and Leucaena collinsii) using the Kaplan-Meier estimator and the MaxEnt model with the purpose of rehabilitating degraded soils via agroforestry systems. There were 19 edaphoclimatic variables used and the occurrences of three species, obtained from the GBIF, MEXU, and SNIB databases. The models generated with MaxEnt were very accurate (area under the curve [AUC] ≥ 0.7). The species Atriplex canescens and Cynodon dactylon showed areas of potential planting sites (>0.4) and high survival rates (80% and 92%, respectively). The species Leucaena collinsii presented areas with lower potential planting (<0.4) but registered the greater survival rate (100%). The results provide a solid basis to evaluate the survival rates of forage species within potential planting sites in the Tula watershed using agroforestry systems to rehabilitate degraded soils.

Mexico has a great diversity of Boletaceae species. However, some genera, including those of the Xerocomellus, have been overlooked. This work presents a new species and a new record of Xerocomellus, together with a key to the Xerocomellus in Mexico. The new species of Xerocomellus is proposed based on morphological and phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences from four genes (ITS, LSU, rpb1, and tef1). Xerocomellus piedracanteadensis sp. nov. forms an independent lineage from other species of the genus and is characterized by medium-sized basidiomata, dry, tomentose to rivulose or areolate pileus surface with whitish flesh staining pale yellow to pale red, with basidiospores ranging from (8)10–14(15) × (3)–5 µm, pileipellis formed by a trichoderm 300 µm thick, with terminals cells 13–55 × (8)10–23 µm, cylindrical, ovoid, subglobose to mammillate with rounded or acute apex, coarsely encrusting in lower elements ringed look wall, dark brown. Additionally, the geographical range of Xerocomellus bolinii, previously known only from Florida, the USA, is broadened to Central Mexico, and its edibility is reported for the first time. Photographs and a detailed description of the new species, the new record, and their phylogenetic analysis results are presented. An updated key for the Xerocomellus in Mexico is also presented.