The effects of environmental and dispersal processes on macrofungi community assembly remain unclear. Further, it is not well understood if community assembly differs for different functional guilds of macrofungi, e.g., soil and rotten-wood macrofungi. In this study, using 2433 macrofungi sporocarps belonging to 217 species located within a forest dynamics plot in temperate mountain forest (China), we examined the explanatory power of topography, spatial eigenvectors (representing unknown spatial processes, e.g., dispersal), plant community, and light availability for local spatial variation in the macrofungi community through variance partitioning and partial least squares path modeling. We found spatial eigenvectors and light as the most important factors for explaining species richness and composition of macrofungi. Light was negatively correlated with species richness of macrofungi. Furthermore, species richness and composition of soil macrofungi were best explained by light, and species richness and composition of rotten-wood macrofungi were best explained by spatial eigenvectors. Woody plant community structure was not an important factor for species richness and composition of macrofungi. Our findings suggest that spatial processes, perhaps dispersal limitation, and light availability were the most important factors affecting macrofungi community in temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest. Major differences in influencing factors between soil and rotten-wood macrofungi were observed, with light as the major driver for soil macrofungi and unknown spatial processes as the major driver for rotten-wood macrofungi. These findings shed new light to the processes shaping community assembly in macrofungi in temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest and point to the potential importance of both intrinsic dynamics, such as dispersal, and external forcing, such as forest dynamics, via its effect on light availability.

Species turnover is fundamental for understanding the mechanisms that influence large-scale species richness patterns. However, few studies have described and interpreted large-scale spatial variation in plant species turnover, and the causes of this variation remain elusive. In addition, the determinants of species turnover depend on the dispersal ability of growth forms. In this study, we explored the large-scale patterns of woody species turnover across the latitude gradient based on eight large stem-mapping plots (covering 184 ha forest) in East Asia. The patterns of woody species turnover increased significantly with increasing latitude differences in East Asia. For overall woody species, environment explained 36.30, 37.20, and 48.48% of the total variance in Jaccard’s (βj), Sorenson’s, (βs), and Simpson’s dissimilarity (βsim). Spatial factors explained 47.92, 48.39, and 41.38% of the total variance in βj, βs, and βsim, respectively. The effects of pure spatial and spatially structured environments were stronger than pure environmental effects for overall woody species. Our results support the hypothesis that the effect of neutral processes on woody species turnover is more important than the effect of the environment. Neutral processes explained more variation for turnover of tree species, and environmental factors explained more variation for the turnover of shrub species on a large scale. Therefore, trees and shrubs should be subjected to different protection strategies in future biodiversity conservation efforts.