Lifestyle and threat of macromycetes, and functional traits correlated with it

Abstract

Regarding the functional traits of macromycetes, at present there are only few studies available, and these mostly deal with more specific questions or single traits. In the present study we are interested in functional traits that may explain the lifestyle and threat of these fungi. For this purpose, we assembled a database on 31 traits that cover a broad range of features of, e.g., fruit body morphology, hymenial structure, spore morphology, and propagule dispersal of 636 macromycete species. To allow an easier classification of hymenium size we introduce two new measures, volume index and surface index. Lifestyle and Red List classification were used to detect differences in functional trait adaptation of species. Both were used as predictors in these analyses. Lifestyle type accounts for significant differences in 28 traits, which shows that different lifestyle types are based on specific trait combinations. Red List classification accounted for significant differences in four traits. We describe the differentiations and discuss them against the background of ecological and morphological research, including the causes of threat and niche adaptation.