Factors affecting composition of fatty acids in wild-growing forest mushrooms

ABSTRACT

The importance of mushrooms as a food source is continually increasing. To investigate how environmental factors affect the nutritional value of mushrooms, we harvested them in eastern Poland, south-central Germany, and northwestern Belgium in plots with similar environmental conditions but varying in tree species composition and richness. We used gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to analyze the fatty acid (FA) content of the mushrooms. Fungal species identity explained the largest part (40%) of the total variation in FA concentration and composition. Environmental factors accounted for 1–12% of variation. The concentration of FA, especially saturated fatty acids, decreased with increasing understory cover and increasing nitrogen concentration in the topsoil. The effect of tree species richness or tree species identity was negligible. Our results suggest that the nutritional value of mushrooms depends mainly on the species identity of fungi, but that their FA content is slightly higher in forests with less undergrowth and in nitrogen-poor soils.

KEYWORDS:

• Dr. Forest
• environmental factors
• fungi
• lipids
• nutritive value

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the technical staff of the Białowieża Geobotanical Station (University of Warsaw) and Department of Toxicology and Bromatology (Medical University of Warsaw), especially those involved in the field and laboratory work: Ł. Dawidziuk-Iwacik, I. Smerczyński, A. Wiktoruk, and E. Syta. Stand characteristics and increment of trees were measured by the team of O. Bouriaud from the Forestry Faculty of the University of Suceava (Romania) in the framework of FunDivEUROPE (http://project.fundiveurope.eu) and Soil4EUROPE (https://www.biodiversa.org/977) projects.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00275514.2024.2325045

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA project Dr. Forest, with the national funders German Research Foundation (DFG, Germany), French National Research Agency (ANR, France), Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO, Belgium), Austrian Science Fund (FWF, Austria), and National Science Center (NCN, Poland) (project no. 2019/31/Z/NZ8/04032), as part of the 2018–2019 BiodivERsA call for research proposals.