Hyppolite Lougbégnon Aignon
Other projects
25 Feb 2020
Conservation of Ectomycorrhizal Fungal and their Habitat: Challenges for Sustainable Management of Biodiversity in Benin (West Africa)
2 Aug 2021
Enhancing the Forest Conservation Law Enforcement and Awareness Campaigns: An Effective Strategy to Save Fungi in Benin
Benin, like most West African countries, doesn’t have any reliable species distribution databases to be used as a foundation for decisions on fungal species conservation. This project will set up a database for monitoring fungi in Benin by integrating all collections of Bachelor, Master thesis, and the publications of all mycologist researchers who have worked in Benin. The project will also analyse the fungi distribution, to detect rare species and fungal diversity hotspots, produce and reforest symbiotic trees to reinforce the habitat of the five most endangered fungi species in Benin and sensitize local people about the fungi conservation.
Human actions and climate change are the main threats to biodiversity. They cause the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats. Long term solution of the socio-economic challenges of the African continent will need to integrate the conservation of natural resources into the development. Benin has a high diversity of fungi (about 18,000 species) and during the last two decades many research and development projects have generated numerous diversity and distributional data of these fungi. However, the data are scattered and disseminated in various documents from different sources and are therefore difficult to combine for conservation efforts. So it is important for fungal species to compile it to an up-to-date and reliable database. The knowledge of the spatial distribution of fungal diversity in Benin will represent a step towards global conservation action of fungi. This project will be carried out in the Sudanian region of Benin because of its great potential in fungal resources
The aims are:
1) Establish a database for the monitoring of fungi in Benin
2) Analyse the distribution of mushrooms
3) Detect rare species and hotspots of fungal diversity
4) Produce and reforest symbiotic trees to strengthen the habitat of the five most endangered species of fungi in Benin
5) Sensitize local populations for the conservation of mushrooms.