Exploring Trait Trade-Offs for Fungal Decomposers in a Southern California Grassland

Alster, Charlotte J.; Allison, Steven D.; Glassman, Sydney I.; Martiny, Adam C.; Treseder, Kathleen K.

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.655987

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…As the positive relationships between traits associated with resource capture, stress tolerance, and fast growth in the Blended life history strategy did not support our hypothesis of tradeoffs, perhaps investment in these specific traits were not as costly as predicted. Similarly, Alster et al (2021) did not observe trade-offs between traits associated with growth yield, resource acquisition, and stress tolerance in fungi from a Southern California grassland. A possible explanation may be that fungal taxa within this Blended life history strategy required equal investment in these traits for survival, which is why trade-offs were not observed.…”

Section: Blended Life History Strategymentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Since resource capture enzymes in this life history strategy, such as glucosidases and chitosanase must assume their proper three-dimensional structures to become functional, heat shock proteins may have been particularly advantageous for fungi within the Blended life history strategy. In contrast, it is also possible that resource capture and fast growth traits in this life history strategy were used to support investment in stress tolerance as suggested by Alster et al (2021). For example, carbon gained through resource capture enzymes and nutrients gained through acid phosphatase and ammonium transporter could be invested toward trehalose production, thereby providing protection from desiccation, freeze damage, or heat shock (Singer and Lindquist, 1998;Schimel et al, 2007).…”

Section: Blended Life History Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trade-Offs Between Growth Rate and Other Fungal Traits

Lovero

Treseder

2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

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If we better understand how fungal responses to global change are governed by their traits, we can improve predictions of fungal community composition and ecosystem function. Specifically, we can examine trade-offs among traits, in which the allocation of finite resources toward one trait reduces the investment in others. We hypothesized that trade-offs among fungal traits relating to rapid growth, resource capture, and stress tolerance sort fungal species into discrete life history strategies. We used the Biolog Filamentous Fungi database to calculate maximum growth rates of 37 fungal species and then compared them to their functional traits from the funfun database. In partial support of our hypothesis, maximum growth rate displayed a negative relationship with traits related to resource capture. Moreover, maximum growth rate displayed a positive relationship with amino acid permease, forming a putative Fast Growth life history strategy. A second putative life history strategy is characterized by a positive relationship between extracellular enzymes, including cellobiohydrolase 6, cellobiohydrolase 7, crystalline cellulase AA9, and lignin peroxidase. These extracellular enzymes were negatively related to chitosanase 8, an enzyme that can break down a derivative of chitin. Chitosanase 8 displayed a positive relationship with many traits that were hypothesized to cluster separately, forming a putative Blended life history strategy characterized by certain resource capture, fast growth, and stress tolerance traits. These trait relationships complement previously explored microbial trait frameworks, such as the Competitor-Stress Tolerator-Ruderal and the Yield-Resource Acquisition-Stress Tolerance schemes.

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Section: Blended Life History Strategymentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Blended Life History Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-Offs Between Growth Rate and Other Fungal Traits

Lovero

Treseder

2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

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“…To test Hypothesis 2, we compared coefficients of variation (CVs) of field data (this study) versus those of laboratory data (Alster et al, 2021). A CV is the ratio of standard deviation to mean.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Growth yield was also not significantly related to any of the extracellular enzyme activities (Figure 4). As a reminder, no relationships between any of these traits were significant in the laboratory setting (Figure 2; Alster et al, 2021).…”

Section: Trait Trade-offsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Previously, we conducted a laboratory experiment to test the theory that lifestyle strategies are structured by trade-offs among fungal traits (Figure 1a,b; (Alster et al, 2021). Specifically, we tested whether trade-offs exist for fungal decomposers following the newly proposed "YAS" framework (for yield-acquisition-stress tolerance lifestyles), which is a microbial modification of Grime's competitor-stress tolerator-ruderal framework We propose an alternative framework, modified from the YAS framework and based on our results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trait relationships of fungal decomposers in response to drought using a dual field and laboratory approach

2022

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Decomposer fungi play a fundamental role in terrestrial ecosystem dynamics. In the southwestern United States, climate change is causing more frequent and severe droughts, which may alter fungal community composition and activity. Investigating relationships between fungal traits may improve the prediction of fungal responses to drought. In this dual field and laboratory experiment, we examine whether trade‐offs occur between traits associated with drought. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that fungi sort into lifestyles specializing in growth yield, resource acquisition, and drought stress tolerance (“YAS” framework). For the field experiment, we constructed microbial “cages” containing sterilized litter and 1 of 10 fungal isolates. These cages were placed in long‐term drought and control plots in a southern Californian grassland for 6 and 12 months. We measured fungal hyphal length per unit litter mass loss for growth yield, the potential activities of four extracellular enzymes for resource acquisition, and the ability to grow in the drought versus control plots for drought stress tolerance. We compared these results with a laboratory microcosm experiment constructed with the same fungal isolates and that measured the same fungal traits. The field experiment corroborated our laboratory results, in that no trade‐offs were observed between growth yield and resource acquisition traits. However, in contrast to the laboratory experiment, drought tolerance was negatively related to extracellular enzyme activity and growth yield in the field, implying a trade‐off. Despite this observed trade‐off in the field, growth yield was not hindered by drought. We propose a modification to the YAS framework, by combining the growth yield and resource acquisition lifestyles, which may be more appropriate for this arid system. This joint laboratory and field approach contextualizes a theoretical framework in microbial ecology and improves understanding of fungal community response to climate change.

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Sympoietic growth: living and producing with fungi in times of ecological distress

2022

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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.

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Exploring Trait Trade-Offs for Fungal Decomposers in a Southern California Grassland

Cited by 7 publications

References 70 publications

Trade-Offs Between Growth Rate and Other Fungal Traits

Trade-Offs Between Growth Rate and Other Fungal Traits

Trait relationships of fungal decomposers in response to drought using a dual field and laboratory approach

Sympoietic growth: living and producing with fungi in times of ecological distress

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