SummaryThere is a growing interest amongst community ecologists in functional traits. Response traits determine membership in communities. Effect traits influence ecosystem function. One goal of community ecology is to predict the effect of environmental change on ecosystem function. Environmental change can directly and indirectly affect ecosystem function. Indirect effects are mediated through shifts in community structure. It is difficult to predict how environmental change will affect ecosystem function via the indirect route when the change in effect trait distribution is not predictable from the change in response trait distribution. When response traits function as effect traits, however, it becomes possible to predict the indirect effect of environmental change on ecosystem function. Here we illustrate four examples in which key attributes of ectomycorrhizal fungi function as both response and effect traits. While plant ecologists have discussed response and effect traits in the context of community structuring and ecosystem function, this approach has not been applied to ectomycorrhizal fungi. This is unfortunate because of the large effects of ectomycorrhizal fungi on ecosystem function. We hope to stimulate further research in this area in the hope of better predicting the ecosystem-and landscape-level effects of the fungi as influenced by changing environmental conditions.

Much of the current knowledge on population biology and ecology of soilborne fungal pathogens has been derived from research based on populations recovered from plants displaying disease symptoms or soil associated with symptomatic plants. Many soilborne fungal pathogens are known to cause disease on a large number of crop plants, including a variety of important agronomical, horticultural, ornamental, and forest plants species. For instance, the fungus Verticillium dahliae causes disease on >400 host plants. From a phytopathological perspective, plants on which disease symptoms have not been yet observed are considered to be nonhosts for V. dahliae. This term may be misleading because it does not provide information regarding the nature of the plant-fungus association; that is, a nonhost plant may harbor the fungus as an endophyte. Yet, there are numerous instances in the literature where V. dahliae has been isolated from asymptomatic plants; thus, these plants should be considered hosts. In this article, we synthesize scattered research that indicates that V. dahliae, aside from being a successful and significant vascular plant pathogen, may have a cryptic biology on numerous asymptomatic plants as an endophyte. Thus, we suggest here that these endophytic associations among V. dahliae and asymptomatic plants are not unusual relationships in nature. We propose to embrace the broader ecology of many fungi by differentiating between "symptomatic hosts" as those plants in which the infection and colonization by a fungus results in disease, and "asymptomatic hosts" as those plants that harbor the fungus endophytically and are different than true nonhosts that should be used for plant species that do not interact with the given fungus. In fact, if we broaden our definition of "host plant" to include asymptomatic plants that harbor the fungus as an endophyte, it is likely that the host ranges for some soilborne fungal pathogens are much larger than previously envisioned. By ignoring the potential for soilborne fungal pathogens to display endophytic relationships, we leave gaps in our knowledge about the population biology and ecology, persistence, and spread of these fungi in agroecosystems.

Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi contribute significantly to ecosystem respiration, but little research has addressed the effect of temperature on ECM fungal respiration. Some plants have the ability to acclimate to temperature such that long-term exposure to warmer conditions slows respiration at a given measurement temperature and long-term exposure to cooler conditions increases respiration at a given measurement temperature. We examined acclimation to temperature and temperature sensitivity (Q 10 ) of respiration by ECM fungi by incubating them for a week at one of three temperatures and measuring respiration over a range of temperatures. Among the 12 ECM fungal isolates that were tested, Suillus intermedius, Cenococcum geophilum, and Lactarius cf. pubescens exhibited significant acclimation to temperature, exhibiting an average reduction in respiration of 20-45% when incubated at 23 1C compared with when incubated at 11 or 17 1C. The isolates differed significantly in their Q 10 values, which ranged from 1.67 to 2.56. We also found that half of the isolates significantly increased Q 10 with an increase in incubator temperature by an average of 15%. We conclude that substantial variation exists among ECM fungal isolates in their ability to acclimate to temperature and in their sensitivity to temperature. As soil temperatures increase, ECM fungi that acclimate may require less carbon from their host plants than fungi that do not acclimate. The ability of some ECM fungi to acclimate may partially ameliorate the anticipated positive feedback between soil respiration and temperature.

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