Abstract
Forest restoration has become one of the most important challenges for restoration ecology in the recent years. In this regard, soil fungi are fundamental drivers of forest ecosystem processes, with significant implications for plant growth and survival. However, the post-disturbance recovery of belowground communities has been rarely assessed, especially in highly degraded systems such as mines. Our aim was to compare forests and mined systems for biomass and structure of fungal communities in soil during early stages of tree establishment after disturbance. We performed ergosterol analysis and PacBio and Illumina sequencing of internal transcribed spacer 2 amplicons across soil layers in P. sylvestris, Q. robur and Q. ilex (holm oak) forests and naturally revegetated mined sites. In pine forests, total fungal biomass was significantly higher in litter and humus compared to mineral layers, with dominance of the mycorrhizal genera Tomentella, Inocybe and Tricholoma. Conversely, in oak forests the most abundant mycorrhizal genera were Tomentella, Cortinarius and Sebacina, but the biomass of saprotrophic fungi was greater in the litter layer compared to mycorrhizal fungi, with the genus Preussia being the most abundant. In the revegetated mined sites, ectomycorrhizal fungi dominated in the humus and mineral layers, with the mycorrhizal genus Oidiodendron being dominant. In contrast, in holm oak forests saprotrophic fungi dominated both soil humus and mineral layers, with the genera of Alternaria, Bovista and Mycena dominating the soil humus forest layer, while the genus Cadophora dominated the mineral layer. The habitat-specific differences in soil fungal community composition and putative functions suggest that an understanding of soil–plant–microbial interactions for different tree species and use of specific soil/litter inoculum upon planting/seeding might help to increase the effectiveness of tree restoration strategies in Mediterranean degraded sites.
Highlights
Forests cover 31% of the global land area and are home to most of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity [1], being fundamental as water-catchments and in the storage of carbon stocks to mitigate the effects of climate change [2]
Soil mycorrhizal biomass dominated pine stands, which is in accordance with [45] who described in Mediterranean pine stands a dominance of mycorrhizal biomass compared to other fungi guilds in soil mineral layers
Our analyses indicate that soil fungal biomass and composition differed between the four environments selected, with significant differences especially between pine and oak forest, and in mined sites between holm oak forest and revegetated plain
Summary
Forests cover 31% of the global land area and are home to most of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity [1], being fundamental as water-catchments and in the storage of carbon stocks to mitigate the effects of climate change [2]. The increase in frequency and intensity of man-made disturbances has favoured deforestation and forest degradation at alarming rates in some parts of the world [3]. Forest restoration has become one of the most important challenges facing restoration ecology in recent years [4]. The reestablishment of tree species in degraded areas is usually a difficult task, mainly due to the environmental hardness and biotic and abiotic soil limitations of disturbed ecosystems [5]. Notably absent from the forest restoration framework is the consideration of how the interactions and feedbacks between above- and below-ground biological communities and abiotic conditions underpin critical ecological functions and biogeochemical processes [7,8]
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