Most cited article - PubMed ID 31723140
A meta-analysis of global fungal distribution reveals climate-driven patterns
BACKGROUND: Fine woody debris (FWD; deadwood < 10 cm diameter) is a crucial but often overlooked component of forest ecosystems. It provides habitat for microbial communities and enhances soil fertility through nutrient cycling. This role is especially important in managed forests, which typically have limited deadwood stocks. Climate change is increasing forest disturbances and expanding early successional forests with low canopy cover, yet the effects on microbial communities and related processes remain poorly understood. RESULTS: In a ten-year canopy manipulation experiment, we examined the decomposition of FWD of Fagus sylvatica and Abies alba. Increased canopy openness significantly decreased bacterial diversity in decomposing FWD and altered the community composition in surrounding soil. Decomposition time was the main factor shaping bacterial community structure in FWD, with tree species and canopy cover also contributing. We identified bacterial groups involved in carbohydrate degradation, fungal biomass breakdown, and nitrogen fixation. Importantly, bacterial communities in fully decomposed FWD remained distinct from soil communities. CONCLUSIONS: Deadwood decomposition and nutrient cycling are driven by complex ecological interactions. Microbial community dynamics are influenced by the interplay of FWD decomposition stage, tree species, and microclimatic conditions. Bacterial communities, although less frequently studied in this context, appear more stable over time than previously studied fungi. This stability may help sustain decomposition processes and nutrient turnover under the environmental variability associated with global change.
- Keywords
- Bacterial community, Canopy cover, Deadwood, Decomposition, Ecology, Fine woody debris, Microclimate, Succession, Temperate forest,
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Mycorrhizal fungi are ecosystem engineers that sustain plant life and help regulate Earth's biogeochemical cycles1-3. However, in contrast to plants and animals, the global distribution of mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity is largely unknown, which limits our ability to monitor and protect key underground ecosystems4,5. Here we trained machine-learning algorithms on a global dataset of 25,000 geolocated soil samples comprising >2.8 billion fungal DNA sequences. We predicted arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungal richness and rarity across terrestrial ecosystems. On the basis of these predictions, we generated high-resolution, global-scale maps and identified key reservoirs of highly diverse and endemic mycorrhizal communities. Intersecting protected areas with mycorrhizal hotspots indicated that less than 10% of predicted mycorrhizal richness hotspots currently exist in protected areas. Our results describe a largely hidden component of Earth's underground ecosystems and can help identify conservation priorities, set monitoring benchmarks and create specific restoration plans and land-management strategies.
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Gradients in species diversity across elevations and latitudes have fascinated biologists for decades. While these gradients have been well documented for macroorganisms, there is limited consensus about their universality, shape and drivers for microorganisms, such as fungi, despite the importance of fungal diversity for ecosystem functions and services. We conducted a comprehensive survey of fungal species richness in forests across 17 elevational transects along a latitudinal gradient covering the continental scale of Europe. Diversity patterns along elevational and latitudinal gradients differed among fungal ecological guilds. Diversity of saprotrophs declined with elevation while ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal diversity peaked in mid-elevations. Moreover, the diversity of root endophytic fungi increased with latitude but did not change with elevation. Bayesian species distribution modeling suggests that fungal diversity is structured by deterministic rather than stochastic drivers. Importantly, ECM fungal diversity pattern persists even after accounting for the effects of environmental conditions. These results suggest that environmental conditions differentially shape the diversity of fungal guilds along elevational and latitudinal gradients, but this goes beyond soil and climatic factors in the case of ECM fungi. This study paves the way toward a better understanding of fungal diversity gradients across elevations and latitudes, with possible implications for macroecological theory, conservation and management.
- Keywords
- altitudinal and latitudinal gradients, biogeography, climate, ectomycorrhizal fungi, fungal diversity, join species distribution models, root endophytic fungi, saprotrophic fungi,
- MeSH
- Bayes Theorem MeSH
- Biodiversity * MeSH
- Fungi * physiology MeSH
- Mycorrhizae physiology MeSH
- Altitude * MeSH
- Geography MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Geographicals
- Europe MeSH
Fungi are arguably the most diverse eukaryotic kingdom of organisms in terms of number of estimated species, trophic and life history strategies, and their functions in ecosystems. However, our knowledge of fungi is limited due to a distributional bias; the vast majority of available data on fungi have been compiled from non-tropical regions. Far less is known about fungi from tropical regions, with the bulk of these data being temporally limited surveys for fungal species diversity. Long-term studies (LTS), or repeated sampling from the same region over extended periods, are necessary to fully capture the extent of species diversity in a region, but LTS of fungi from tropical regions are almost non-existent. In this paper, we discuss the contributions of LTS of fungi in tropical regions to alpha diversity, ecological and functional diversity, biogeography, hypothesis testing, and conservation-with an emphasis on an ongoing tropical LTS in the Pakaraima Mountains of Guyana. We show how these contributions refine our understanding of Fungi. We also show that public data repositories such as NCBI, IUCN, and iNaturalist contain less information on tropical fungi compared to non-tropical fungi, and that these discrepancies are more pronounced in fungi than in plants and animals.
Los hongos son, posiblemente, el reino más diverso dentro del dominio Eukaryota en cuanto al número de especies estimadas, estrategias tróficas, ciclos de vida y funciones en los ecosistemas. No obstante, nuestro conocimiento sobre ellos es limitado debido a un sesgo de distribución: la mayoría de los datos disponibles provienen de regiones no tropicales. Se sabe mucho menos sobre los hongos de las zonas tropicales, y la mayor parte de los estudios realizados en estas áreas han sido de corta duración, centrados en la diversidad de especies fúngicas. Los estudios a largo plazo (LTS, por sus siglas en inglés), es decir, muestreos repetidos en una misma región durante períodos prolongados, son fundamentales para captar de manera completa la diversidad de especies en una zona. Sin embargo, los LTS de hongos en regiones tropicales son prácticamente inexistentes. En este artículo, analizamos las contribuciones de los LTS de hongos en zonas tropicales en relación con la diversidad alfa, la diversidad ecológica y funcional, la biogeografía, la prueba de hipótesis y la conservación, destacando un estudio LTS en curso en las montañas Pakaraima de Guyana. Mostramos cómo estos estudios enriquecen nuestra comprensión de los hongos. Además, demostramos que los repositorios públicos de datos como NCBI, UICN e iNaturalist contienen menos información sobre los hongos tropicales en comparación con los de regiones no tropicales, y que estas discrepancias son más marcadas en los hongos que en las plantas y los animales.
- Keywords
- Biodiversity, Biogeography, Citizen science, Conservation, Endemic fungi, Guiana shield, Taxonomy,
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Review MeSH
How the multiple facets of soil fungal diversity vary worldwide remains virtually unknown, hindering the management of this essential species-rich group. By sequencing high-resolution DNA markers in over 4000 topsoil samples from natural and human-altered ecosystems across all continents, we illustrate the distributions and drivers of different levels of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of fungi and their ecological groups. We show the impact of precipitation and temperature interactions on local fungal species richness (alpha diversity) across different climates. Our findings reveal how temperature drives fungal compositional turnover (beta diversity) and phylogenetic diversity, linking them with regional species richness (gamma diversity). We integrate fungi into the principles of global biodiversity distribution and present detailed maps for biodiversity conservation and modeling of global ecological processes.
Drawing upon ethnographic research on human living and producing with fungi, and Haraway's theorization of sympoiesis and the model ecosystems of mycorrhizae developed in current mycological research, we offer a concept of sympoietic growth. Sympoiesis is a concept that suggests a way of thinking about growth as a more-than-human process and provides an alternative political imaginary both to current forms of economic growth and to the idea of "degrowth." We explore human-fungi co-operation in forests, an urban park, and a shopping mall, on a miso production farm, and in a Catholic parish to provide insights into the logic and relationships involved in sympoietic growth in the field of agriculture and food production. We argue that this form of food provision has a sustainable, (re)generative potential not only in ecological and social but also economic terms. In conclusion, we highlight three patterns of sympoietic growth: the absence of any urge to "take (back) control" over the multispecies dynamic on the part of the humans; a non-instrumental passion for more-than-human life; and a combination of intellectual and manual labor as a form of attachment to the more-than-human world.
- Keywords
- Degrowth, Fungi, Model ecosystems, Mushroom foraging, Sympoiesis,
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Forests influence climate and mitigate global change through the storage of carbon in soils. In turn, these complex ecosystems face important challenges, including increases in carbon dioxide, warming, drought and fire, pest outbreaks and nitrogen deposition. The response of forests to these changes is largely mediated by microorganisms, especially fungi and bacteria. The effects of global change differ among boreal, temperate and tropical forests. The future of forests depends mostly on the performance and balance of fungal symbiotic guilds, saprotrophic fungi and bacteria, and fungal plant pathogens. Drought severely weakens forest resilience, as it triggers adverse processes such as pathogen outbreaks and fires that impact the microbial and forest performance for carbon storage and nutrient turnover. Nitrogen deposition also substantially affects forest microbial processes, with a pronounced effect in the temperate zone. Considering plant-microorganism interactions would help predict the future of forests and identify management strategies to increase ecosystem stability and alleviate climate change effects. In this Review, we describe the impact of global change on the forest ecosystem and its microbiome across different climatic zones. We propose potential approaches to control the adverse effects of global change on forest stability, and present future research directions to understand the changes ahead.
BACKGROUND: Root and soil microbial communities constitute the below-ground plant microbiome, are drivers of nutrient cycling, and affect plant productivity. However, our understanding of their spatiotemporal patterns is confounded by exogenous factors that covary spatially, such as changes in host plant species, climate, and edaphic factors. These spatiotemporal patterns likely differ across microbiome domains (bacteria and fungi) and niches (root vs. soil). RESULTS: To capture spatial patterns at a regional scale, we sampled the below-ground microbiome of switchgrass monocultures of five sites spanning > 3 degrees of latitude within the Great Lakes region. To capture temporal patterns, we sampled the below-ground microbiome across the growing season within a single site. We compared the strength of spatiotemporal factors to nitrogen addition determining the major drivers in our perennial cropping system. All microbial communities were most strongly structured by sampling site, though collection date also had strong effects; in contrast, nitrogen addition had little to no effect on communities. Though all microbial communities were found to have significant spatiotemporal patterns, sampling site and collection date better explained bacterial than fungal community structure, which appeared more defined by stochastic processes. Root communities, especially bacterial, were more temporally structured than soil communities which were more spatially structured, both across and within sampling sites. Finally, we characterized a core set of taxa in the switchgrass microbiome that persists across space and time. These core taxa represented < 6% of total species richness but > 27% of relative abundance, with potential nitrogen fixing bacteria and fungal mutualists dominating the root community and saprotrophs dominating the soil community. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight the dynamic variability of plant microbiome composition and assembly across space and time, even within a single variety of a plant species. Root and soil fungal community compositions appeared spatiotemporally paired, while root and soil bacterial communities showed a temporal lag in compositional similarity suggesting active recruitment of soil bacteria into the root niche throughout the growing season. A better understanding of the drivers of these differential responses to space and time may improve our ability to predict microbial community structure and function under novel conditions.
- Keywords
- Panicum virgatum, Plant microbiome, Root bacteria, Root fungi, Soil bacteria, Soil fungi,
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Arthroderma is the most diverse genus of dermatophytes, and its natural reservoir is considered to be soil enriched by keratin sources. During a study on the diversity of dermatophytes in wild small rodents in the Czech Republic, we isolated several strains of Arthroderma. To explore the diversity and ecological significance of these isolates from rodents (n = 29), we characterised the strains genetically (i.e., sequenced ITS, tubb and tef1α), morphologically, physiologically, and by conducting mating experiments. We then compared the rodent-derived strains to existing ITS sequence data from GenBank and the GlobalFungi Database to further investigate biogeography and the association of Arthroderma species with different types of environments. In total, eight Arthroderma species were isolated from rodents, including four previously described species (A. crocatum, A. cuniculi, A. curreyi, A. quadrifidum) and four new species proposed herein, i.e., A. rodenticum, A. simile, A. zoogenum and A. psychrophilum. The geographical distribution of these newly described species was not restricted to the Czech Republic nor rodents. Additional isolates were obtained from bats and other mammals, reptiles, and soil from Europe, North America, and Asia. Data mining showed that the genus has a diverse ecology, with some lineages occurring relatively frequently in soil, whereas others appeared to be more closely associated with live animals, as we observed in A. rodenticum. Low numbers of sequence reads ascribed to Arthroderma in soil show that the genus is rare in this environment, which supports the hypothesis that Arthroderma spp. are not soil generalists but rather strongly associated with animals and keratin debris. This is the first study to utilise existing metabarcoding data to assess biogeographical, ecological, and diversity patterns in dermatophytes. Citation: Moulíková Š, Kolařík M, Lorch JM, et al. 2022. Wild rodents harbour high diversity of Arthroderma. Persoonia 50: 27- 47. https://doi.org/10.3767/persoonia.2023.50.02.
- Keywords
- Arthroderma, GlobalFungi, geophilic dermatophytes, mating type genes, new taxa, polyphasic taxonomy, wild rodents,
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Fungi are highly diverse organisms, which provide multiple ecosystem services. However, compared with charismatic animals and plants, the distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been little explored. Here, we examined endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. We found that the endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka, and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are predominantly vulnerable to drought, heat and land-cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests, and woodlands. We stress that more attention should be focused on the conservation of fungi, especially root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi in tropical regions as well as unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between the endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high conservation needs in both groups, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms.
- Keywords
- biodiversity, biogeography, climate change, conservation priorities, global change vulnerability, global maps, mycorrhizal fungi, pathogens, saprotrophs,
- MeSH
- Biodiversity MeSH
- Ecosystem MeSH
- Fungi MeSH
- Forests MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Mycorrhizae * MeSH
- Soil * MeSH
- Soil Microbiology MeSH
- Plants MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Check Tag
- Humans MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Names of Substances
- Soil * MeSH
