Do plant‐based biogeographical regions shape aphyllophoroid fungal communities in Europe?

Abstract

Aim Aphyllophoroid fungi are associated with plants, either using plants as a resource (as parasites or decomposers) or as symbionts (as mycorrhizal partners). In spite of their strong association with plants, it is unknown how much plant distributions determine their biogeographical patterns compared with environmental factors such as climate and human land use. In this study, our aims are to (1) describe the spatial diversity patterns of aphyllophoroid fungi in Europe and (2) identify the factors shaping these patterns. Location Europe, as well as the adjacent Subarctic to Arctic islands (Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Svalbard), Palestine and the south‐east coast of the Caspian Sea. Methods We compiled a dataset consisting of 14,030 fruitbody occurrences of 1,491 aphyllophoroid fungal species from 39 geographical areas (17 countries) belonging to eight biogeographical regions. We assessed the differences in fungal species richness and overall diversity and its nestedness and turnover components across biogeographical regions of Europe, as well as between southern and northern Europe (based on geographical latitude of 50° as threshold). We used cluster and ordination analyses to classify the European aphyllophoroid communities biogeographically and evaluated the importance of climate, host‐tree species, topography and human land‐use intensity in explaining biogeographical variation. Results The importance of biogeographical regions in determining European aphyllophoroid fungal communities varies for different diversity components. Species richness and nestedness are best explained by plant‐based biogeographical regions, whereas overall beta diversity and species turnover are driven mostly by variation in climate, and nestedness mostly by tree species occupancy. Beta‐diversity patterns of aphyllophoroid fungi do not differ between southern and northern Europe. Main conclusions At the continental scale, aphyllophoroid fungi are less shaped by historical legacies than vascular plant and animal communities, and trends of overall beta diversity in southern and northern Europe are similar to patterns found for bryophytes.

Open‐source data reveal how collections‐based fungal diversity is sensitive to global change

“…We revealed a positive relationship between fungal (particularly, ectomycorrhizal) and tree richness (Figs. 1, 2), as has also been found for smaller-scale or coarser-resolution studies (Shi et al, 2014;Spake et al, 2016;Ordynets et al, 2018). However, urban systems contained high tree diversities (Appendices S14, S15), but this clearly did not correspond to increased fungal diversities (Fig.…”

Spatial Variation in Soil Fungal Communities across Paddy Fields in Subtropical China

“…We observed obvious spatial variation in fungal communities among our sampling sites (Fig. 3); while the spatial variation was lower than reported from studies conducted on very large scales (34,35), it was higher than that recorded at smaller scales (36,37), suggesting that the degree of spatial variation observed in fungal communities was dependent on the scale. Distance-decay relationships revealed significant correlations between changes in fungal community composition and the geographical distance between samples for 0-10cm and 10-20cm soil layers, but not in the deeper 20-40cm layer (Fig.…”

Climate continentality increases the beta diversity of macrofungal communities

“…A similar trend was found in tundra and foresttundra zones, where the growth of β-diversity is 1.3-3.1 times (Shiryaev 2017. This growth of β-diversity due to increasing spatial heterogeneity of environmental conditions occurs in other gradients, for example, latitudinal, altitude, and also when industrial pollution increases (Mukhin 1993, Trubina & Vorobeichik 2012, Ordynets et al 2018.…”