Abstract
Soil fungi are a highly diverse group of microorganisms that provide many ecosystem services. The mechanisms of soil fungal community assembly must therefore be understood to reliably predict how global changes such as climate warming and biodiversity loss will affect ecosystem functioning. To this end, we assessed fungal communities in experimental subtropical forests by pyrosequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region, and constructed tree-fungal bipartite networks based on the co-occurrence of fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and tree species. The characteristics of the networks and the observed degree of fungal specialization were then analyzed in relation to the level of tree species diversity. Unexpectedly, plots containing two tree species had higher network connectance and fungal generality values than those with higher tree diversity. Most of the frequent fungal OTUs were saprotrophs. The degree of fungal specialization was highest in tree monocultures. Ectomycorrhizal fungi had higher specialization coefficients than saprotrophic, arbuscular mycorrhizal, and plant pathogenic fungi. High tree species diversity plots with 4 to 16 different tree species sustained the greatest number of fungal species, which is assumed to be beneficial for ecosystem services because it leads to more effective resource exploitation and greater resilience due to functional redundancy.
Highlights
Soil fungi are a highly diverse group of microorganisms [1,2] that are crucial for soil health [3] and provide many ecosystem services including decomposition, element cycling, plant nutrition, and plant protection [4]
High tree species diversity plots with 4 to 16 different tree species sustained the greatest number of fungal species, which is assumed to be beneficial for ecosystem services because it leads to more effective resource exploitation and greater resilience due to functional redundancy
Taxonomic assignments of fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs), the assignments of OTUs to functional groups, and the effects of environmental, spatial, and biotic factors on fungal community composition and diversity were reported by Weißbecker, Wubet, Lentendu, Kühn, Scholten, Bruelheide and Buscot [11]
Summary
Soil fungi are a highly diverse group of microorganisms [1,2] that are crucial for soil health [3] and provide many ecosystem services including decomposition, element cycling, plant nutrition, and plant protection [4]. The mechanisms of soil fungal community assembly must be understood to reliably predict how global changes such as climate warming and biodiversity loss will affect ecosystem functionality. Tree species loss is a likely consequence of global change, so it is important for silvicultural management to determine how such losses could affect soil fungal communities. We have previously characterized the effects of tree diversity on specific functional groups of soil fungi in subtropical young forests [11]. We extend this analysis by investigating the effects of tree diversity on fungal specialization and tree-fungal network patterns
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