Abstract
Environmental filtering (niche process) and dispersal limitation (neutral process) are two of the primary forces driving community assembly in ecosystems, but how these processes affect the Fagaceae-associated ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungal community at regional scales is so far poorly documented. We examined the EM fungal communities of 61 plant species in six genera belonging to the Fagaceae distributed across Chinese forest ecosystems (geographic distance up to ∼3,757 km) using Illumina Miseq sequencing of ITS2 sequences. The relative effects of environmental filtering (e.g., host plant phylogeny, soil and climate) and dispersal limitation (e.g., spatial distance) on the EM fungal community were distinguished using multiple models. In total, 2,706 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of EM fungi, corresponding to 54 fungal lineages, were recovered at a 97% sequence similarity level. The EM fungal OTU richness was significantly affected by soil pH and nutrients and by host phylogeny. The EM fungal community composition was significantly influenced by combinations of host phylogeny, spatial distance, soil and climate. Furthermore, host phylogeny had the greatest effect on EM fungal community. The study suggests that the assembly of the EM fungal community is governed by both environmental filtering and dispersal limitation, with host effect being the most important determinant at the regional scale.
Highlights
Understanding the mechanisms of biotic community assembly is an important research area in ecology (Chesson, 2000)
In order to reveal the mechanism of assembly of the Fagaceaeassociated EM fungal community at the regional scale, we examined EM fungal communities associated with 61 plant species belonging to six genera of Fagaceae in Chinese forest ecosystems, using Illumina MiSeq sequencing techniques
Apart from the environmental filtering by host plant phylogeny, we found that the EM fungal community composition was influenced by abiotic factors such as soil nutrients, pH and particle size distribution (PSD), and climate, as reported in previous studies (e.g., Miyamoto et al, 2014; Erlandson et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2017)
Summary
Understanding the mechanisms of biotic community assembly is an important research area in ecology (Chesson, 2000). Fagaceae-Associated Ectomycorrhizal Fungal Community very important for understanding biodiversity maintenance, community assembly and ecosystem functioning. Environmental filtering by both biotic (e.g., plants and fungal species interactions) and abiotic (e.g., soil and climate) factors has been shown to structure the EM fungal community at different ecosystem scales (e.g., Pickles et al, 2012; Põlme et al, 2013; Tedersoo et al, 2016; Gao et al, 2017). Closely related plant species tend to exhibit similar morphological and functional traits and may share more soil symbiotic partners than distantly related ones, a phenomenon called “phylogenetic niche conservatism” (Losos, 2008). Recent work has shown that host plant phylogeny is a better predictor than host plant identity when forecasting the effect of the host on the EM fungal community (Tedersoo et al, 2013)
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