Abstract
Although ectomycorrhizal fungi play an important role in forest ecosystem functioning, they are usually not included in forest growth or ecosystem models. Simulation is hampered by two main issues: a lack of understanding of the ecological functioning of the ectomycorrhizal fungi and a lack of adequate basic data for parameterization and validation. Concerning these issues, much progress has been made during the past few years, but this information has not found its way into the forest and soil models. In this paper, state-of-the-art insight into ectomycorrhizal functioning and basic values are described in a manner transparent to nonspecialists and modelers, together with the existing models and model strategies. As such, this paper can be the starting point and the motivator to include ectomycorrhizal fungi into existing soil and forest ecosystem models.
Highlights
Most (80%–90%) trees in temperate and boreal forest ecosystems live in symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi (Read 1992)
There is growing attention concerning the role of EM fungi in ecosystem and soil-forming processes, as illustrated in several reviews in the field of soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics (Read and Perez-Moreno 2003; Talbot et al 2008) and soil mineral weathering (Landeweert et al 2001; Finlay et al 2009), but up to now, EM fungi have been widely ignored in forest soil models
The few studies on rhizomorphs suggested that up to 50% of EM C is located in rhizomorphs (Pritchard et al 2008), but the amount is highly dependent on EM species and soil and host plant nutrient status (Pritchard et al 2008)
Summary
Most (80%–90%) trees in temperate and boreal forest ecosystems live in symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi (Read 1992). For EM fungi, extracellular symbiotic fungi found mostly in temperate and boreal forests, emphasis has been on experimental studies, but inclusion into forest and soil models has so far been rather limited. Some models for EM fungi growth exist (Meyer et al 2010; Deckmyn et al 2011; Orwin et al 2011) In this manuscript, a review of the main data and processes that are potentially important for simulation of EM fungi in forests is given. By listing the main data requirements for development and validation of forest soil models, we hope to stimulate experimental scientists to produce relevant and necessary data. The most useful possible extensions to a simple model are described
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