Modeling the ecological niche and features of coprobiontic fungi distribution in Asia by the example of <i>Cyathus stercoreus</i>

Abstract

Species distribution is undergoing rapid changes in the face of habitat modification and climate change. This leads to concerns about the conservation of declining species and raises ecological questions about the processes that govern species ranges and niches. As a consequence, the predictive distribution models which match species records to patterns in abiotic environmental variables have become an established tool in ecology and conservation. Maximum entropy spatial distribution modelling (MaxEnt) solves this problem by inferring species distributions and environmental tolerance based on the occurrence data. The objectives of this research were the ecological niche and running the habitat suitability modelling on dung fungal species Cyathus stercoreus based on its bioclimatic and substrate features within Asia. We constructed a map of the current geographical distribution of the dung fungus Cyathus stercoreus using MaxEnt method. We included in the model 19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables with the corresponding altitude data, and seven spatially well-dispersed species occurrence records. Despite its narrow substrate specialization, Cyathus stercoreus is climatically quite plastic and is able to develop in a wide range of variations in mean annual temperatures and mean annual precipitation, which follows from the analysis of a two-dimensional niche based on two climatic variables using the Envelope method. Modeling the distribution of basidiomycete dung fungi using the Cyathus stercoreus as an example showed that the area of their potential distribution with a zone of favorable climate is very large. Most of the zone with a favorable climate is located in the area with the probability of the presence of species up to 70%. Cyathus stercoreus is not associated with any particular habitat type. On the territory of Russia, in the south of Siberia, the species is located on the northern border of its range in the area with the least favorable bioclimatic environmental factors.