Ectomycorrhizal fungi in wood-pastures: Communities are determined by trees and soil properties, not by grazing

Abstract

Traditional rural biotopes such as wood-pastures are species-rich environments that have been created by low-intensity agriculture. Their amount has decreased dramatically during the 20th century in whole Europe due to the intensification of agriculture. Wood-pastures host some fungal species that prefer warm areas and are adapted to semi-open conditions, but still very little is known about fungi in these habitats. We studied how management, historical land-use intensity, present grazing intensity, time since abandonment, and stand conditions affect the species richness and community composition of ectomycorrhizal fungi. We surveyed fruit bodies on three 10 m x 10 m study plots in 36 sites and repeated the surveys three times. Half of the sites were currently unmanaged but had a grazing history. We measured soil pH,

The effects of grazing history, soil properties and stand structure on the communities of saprotrophic fungi in wood-pastures

“…Because of the reduced plant biomass, soil temperature and light increases and this seems to improve the fruiting conditions for many fungal species (Nitare and Sunhede, 1993;Olff and Ritchie, 1998;Pykälä, 2001). However, in our previous study (Tervonen et al, 2019), we found that ectomycorrhizal fungal species did not have higher species richness on grazed wood-pastures than on abandoned ones. Also, Juutilainen et al (2016) found that wood-pastures have lower wood-inhabiting fungal species richness than natural forests.…”

“…In addition, Rousk et al (2009) found that fungal species richness peaked at pH 4.5 on arable managed land. In our previous study with ectomycorrhizal fungi, species richness decreased with soil moisture in abandoned wood-pastures, whereas soil pH did not have a significant effect on species richness (Tervonen et al, 2019).…”

“…These studies have focused on several species groups, e.g. vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, other fungi, and insects (Saarinen and Jantunen, 2005;Raatikainen et al, 2007;Paltto et al, 2011;Griffith et al, 2012;Oldén et al, 2016aOldén et al, , 2016bKomonen and Elo, 2017;Tervonen et al, 2019). These studies have shown that management, long grazing history, habitat heterogeneity, and environmental conditions, such as soil pH and moisture, have an impact on the species richness (Pykälä, 2001(Pykälä, ,2003Cousins and Eriksson, 2002;Vujnovic et al, 2002;Benton et al, 2003;Oldén et al, 2016aOldén et al, , 2016b.…”

“…Environmental conditions such as soil moisture and soil pH also affect species richness in traditional rural biotopes. Soil moisture and soil pH are the main drivers in communities of bryophytes, vascular plants and ectomycorrhizal fungi in wood-pastures (Oldén et al, 2016b;Tervonen et al, 2019). Oldén et al (2016b) found that bryophyte species richness increases with soil moisture and soil pH, and vascular plant species richness response to soil pH was humped.…”

Soil Fungal Community in Grazed Inner Mongolian Grassland Adjacent to Coal-Mining Activity

“…Soil fungi are a key component of below-ground biological communities and play an important role in decomposition and nutrient recycling through a number of microbiological and ecological processes (Setala and McLean, 2004;Berg and McClaugherty, 2008;Smith and Read, 2010;Voříšková and Baldrian, 2013;Gaggini et al, 2018). Soil fungi have a widespread ecological distribution and the diversity of the fungal community can be affected by many variables such as precipitation, temperature, root exudates, available nutrients, plant community composition, and cropping pattern (Newsham et al, 2016;Nagati et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2018;Schmidt et al, 2019;Tervonen et al, 2019).…”