Soil microclimate changes affect soil fungal communities in a Mediterranean pine forest

Abstract

Soil microclimate is a potentially important regulator of the composition of plant-associated fungal communities in climates with significant drought periods. Here, we investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of soil fungal communities in a Mediterranean Pinus pinaster forest in relation to soil moisture and temperature. Fungal communities in 336 soil samples collected monthly over 1 year from 28 long-term experimental plots were assessed by PacBio sequencing of ITS2 amplicons. Total fungal biomass was estimated by analysing ergosterol. Community changes were analysed in the context of functional traits. Soil fungal biomass was lowest during summer and late winter and highest during autumn, concurrent with a greater relative abundance of mycorrhizal species. Intra-annual spatio-temporal changes in community composition correlated significantly with soil moisture and temperature. Mycorrhizal fungi were less affected by summer drought than free-living fungi. In particular, mycorrhizal species of the short-distance exploration type increased in relative abundance under dry conditions, whereas species of the long-distance exploration type were more abundant under wetter conditions. Our observations demonstrate a potential for compositional and functional shifts in fungal communities in response to changing climatic conditions. Free-living fungi and mycorrhizal species with extensive mycelia may be negatively affected by increasing drought periods in Mediterranean forest ecosystems.

Biogeography of plant root‐associated fungal communities in the North Atlantic region mirrors climatic variability

“…As such, soils in these sites may in fact be drier during the active growing season and sampling times than sites with higher TWQ where precipitation is experienced more often as rain. Our findings would then be consistent with those of Castaño et al (), who found higher relative abundance of short ETs under dry conditions, and long ETs with wetter conditions. Taken together, the results suggest that long ET are favoured by wet conditions.…”

Adaptive zinc tolerance is supported by extensive gene multiplication and differences in cis-regulation of a CDF transporter in an ectomycorrhizal fungus

“…Bradford et al, 2019; Franklin et al, 2016; Fernandez et al, 2016, Kyaschenko et al, 2017). Climate parameters and edaphic factors influence relative abundances and species composition of plant and microbial communities (Castaño et al, 2018; Op De Beeck et al, 2015; Wang et al, 2018). Hostile environments challenge species and survival requires contemporary local adaptation.…”

Predicting Mushroom Productivity from Long-Term Field-Data Series in Mediterranean Pinus pinaster Ait. Forests in the Context of Climate Change

“…However, the number of studies focused on researching the influence of different factors on mushroom productivity continues to increase. Studies of mushroom dynamics show the influence of site characteristics (altitude [11], slope, aspect), stand variables (tree species, stand density, stand age [12], basal area [13], dominant height, tree growth [14,15]), soil properties [16,17] and weather conditions (precipitation, temperature [18,19]). Different approaches have been used in mushroom modeling, including correlations [20], stepwise multiple regressions [21], classificatory simple model [22], linear and nonlinear models [23,24], mixed models [13,14,17,18,25,26] or the two-step model approach [27,28].…”