Species composition of an ectomycorrhizal fungal community along a local nutrient gradient in a boreal forest

Abstract

Summary• Soil abiotic factors are considered to be important in determining the distribution of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal species; however, there are few field data to support this. Here, we relate ECM species distributions to changes in soil chemistry along a short (90-m), natural nutrient gradient.• The ECM community was characterized, using morphological and molecular techniques, in soil samples collected at 10-m intervals.• There were pronounced changes in ECM fungal community structure along the transect, with many taxa showing discrete distributions. Although there was a change of host from Pinus to Picea along the gradient, host-specific fungi did not account for the observed change in community structure. Ordination analyses showed that community structure was strongly correlated with soil characteristics, in particular extractable ammonium and base saturation. However, autocorrelation among soil parameters makes it difficult to isolate the effects of individual parameters.• The distinctive changes in soil and vegetation along the transect used in this study provided an exceptional opportunity to examine the local-scale impact of natural spatial heterogeneity on an ECM fungal community.

Long-term dynamics of aboveground fungal communities in a subalpine Norway spruce forest under elevated nitrogen input

“…e.g. Toljander et al 2006;Rineau and Garbaye 2009;Walthert et al 2006). The F horizon was small (0-2 cm) at the beginning of the experiment and increased to about 3 cm in the year 2007 (data not shown).…”

“…Changes of soil properties due to fertilization and their possible effects on the fungal communities Soil abiotic factors are considered to be important in determining the distribution of ectomycorrhizal fungal species (Erland and Taylor 2002;Toljander et al 2006). Soil base saturation, pH and organic matter content are among the most important factors governing the distribution of macrofungi (Agerer et al 1998;Erland and Taylor 2002;Wallenda and Kottke 1998;Kernaghan 2005).…”

Testing sampling effort and relative abundance descriptors of belowground ectomycorrhizal fungi in a UK planted scots pine woodland

“…Methods of scoring ectomycorrhizas by number of root tips versus DW provide a different picture of species composition; however, we found a relationship between the two measures and we can conclude that the number of EcM root tips is more suitable and less time consuming if we combine with a meticulous morpho-anatotyping study. The use of transects across gradients are helpful to describe maximum variation over short distances in a short period of time (Kent and Coker 1999; Toljander et al 2006). However, in the current study the spatial arrangement of samples indicated that over short distances the dissimilarity was lower in contrast with the longer distances, suggesting that a random sampling across a wider plot could be more suitable in Scots pine woodlands.…”

Seedling mycorrhizal type and soil chemistry are related to canopy condition of Eucalyptus gomphocephala

“…Soil conditions have been suggested to be important factors affecting mycorrhizal fungi (Erland and Taylor 2002;Toljander et al 2006;Scatollin et al 2008;Alzetta et al 2012;Newbound et al 2012). …”