Abstract
Fungal communities have been shown to be highly sensitive toward shifts in plant diversity and species composition in forest ecosystems. However, little is known about the impact of forest management on fungal diversity and community composition of geographically separated sites. This study examined the effects of four different forest management types on soil fungal communities. These forest management types include age class forests of young managed beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), with beech stands age of approximately 30 years, age class beech stands with an age of approximately 70 years, unmanaged beech stands, and coniferous stands dominated by either pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) or spruce (Picea abies Karst.) which are located in three study sites across Germany. Soil were sampled from 48 study plots and we employed fungal ITS rDNA pyrotag sequencing to assess the soil fungal diversity and community structure. We found that forest management type significantly affects the Shannon diversity of soil fungi and a significant interaction effect of study site and forest management on the fungal operational taxonomic units richness. Consequently distinct fungal communities were detected in the three study sites and within the four forest management types, which were mainly related to the main tree species. Further analysis of the contribution of soil properties revealed that C/N ratio being the most important factor in all the three study sites whereas soil pH was significantly related to the fungal community in two study sites. Functional assignment of the fungal communities indicated that 38% of the observed communities were Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) and their distribution is significantly influenced by the forest management. Soil pH and C/N ratio were found to be the main drivers of the ECM fungal community composition. Additional fungal community similarity analysis revealed the presence of study site and management type specific ECM genera. This study extends our knowledge on the impact of forest management type on general and ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity and community structure in temperate forests. High plasticity across management types but also study site specific spatial distribution revealed new insights in the ECM fungal distribution patterns.
Highlights
Soils, which are habitats for a wide range of microorganisms including fungi, are known to provide many ecosystem functions (Deacon, 2009)
The types are: age class forests of young managed beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), with beech stands age of approximately 30 years (B30); age class beech stands with an age of approximately 70 years (B70); unmanaged beech stands, and coniferous stands (Conif) consisting of pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in Schorfheide-Chorin and spruce (Picea abies Karst.) in Swabian Alb and Hainich-Dün
Due to leaching and bioturbation processes, litter influences substrate availability in the topsoil (Kasel et al, 2008) and this may explain why we found a consistent effect of the C/N ratio on fungal community in all the three study sites (Figure 1)
Summary
Soils, which are habitats for a wide range of microorganisms including fungi, are known to provide many ecosystem functions (Deacon, 2009). Saprotrophic fungi take major part in decay processes (Hobbie et al, 1999), whereas ECM fungi are both decomposers and mutualists with plant roots and can constitute up to 80% of the fungal biomass in forest soils (Nehls, 2008). Soil fungal communities are shaped by a number of biotic and abiotic factors. Because of their close associations with plants, fungi show high sensitivity to shifts in vegetation (Lauber et al, 2008). Differences in root architecture and exudation patterns (Aleklett and Hart, 2013; Bakker et al, 2014) are known to impact soil properties such as nutrient concentrations (Jones et al, 2004) and pH (Hartmann et al, 2008), which directly affect the soil fungal community composition
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