Effect of Simulated Climate Warming on the Ectomycorrhizal Fungal Community of Boreal and Temperate Host Species Growing Near Their Shared Ecotonal Range Limits

Abstract

Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi can influence the establishment and performance of host species by increasing nutrient and water absorption. Therefore, understanding the response of ECM fungi to expected changes in the global climate is crucial for predicting potential changes in the composition and productivity of forests. While anthropogenic activity has, and will continue to, cause global temperature increases, few studies have investigated how increases in temperature will affect the community composition of ectomycorrhizal fungi. The effects of global warming are expected to be particularly strong at biome boundaries and in the northern latitudes. In the present study, we analyzed the effects of experimental manipulations of temperature and canopy structure (open vs. closed) on ectomycorrhizal fungi identified from roots of host seedlings through 454 pyrosequencing. The ecotonal boundary site selected for the study was between the southern boreal and temperate forests in northern Minnesota, USA, which is the southern limit range for Picea glauca and Betula papyrifera and the northern one for Pinus strobus and Quercus rubra. Manipulations that increased air and soil temperature by 1.7 and 3.4 °C above ambient temperatures, respectively, did not change ECM richness but did alter the composition of the ECM community in a manner dependent on host and canopy structure. The prediction that colonization of boreal tree species with ECM symbionts characteristic of temperate species would occur was not substantiated. Overall, only a small proportion of the ECM community appears to be strongly sensitive to warming.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00248-017-1044-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity and community structure associated with cork oak in different landscapes

“…However, the influence of temperature and root density were reported to affect their distribution (Peay et al 2011;Jarvis et al 2013). Accordingly, manipulated warming was reported to decrease medium-smooth and contact exploration types (Mucha et al 2018). To the best of our knowledge, the effect of precipitation has never been related to exploration-type distribution.…”

“…Interestingly, we found a stronger correlation between the rainiest climates and ECMF richness, while ECMF abundance seemed to be more influenced by temperature than precipitation levels. As no alterations in ECMF richness were observed in response to simulated warming in boreal or temperate tree species, Mucha et al (2018) suggested that warming would have a smaller impact on root symbiotic fungi when precipitation was held constant. We suggest that limitations on the precipitation levels occurring in drier regions could lead to a decrease in ECMF richness, making the driest and warmer sites (southern cork oak forests) more susceptible to environmental filtering than the rainiest and colder sites.…”

“…The composition of ECMF communities is known to strongly vary with biotic factors, including forest use and management (Azul et al 2010), forest vegetation composition and activity (Štursová et al 2016), and host genotype (Lamit et al 2016). The main drivers of ECMF also include abiotic conditions, climatic factors (Mucha et al 2018), and soil properties (Albornoz et al 2016) or soil resources (Courty et al 2016). The diversity and structure of Quercus ECMF communities have already been studied based on the ITS barcoding of ECM tips (Smith and Read 2008;Azul et al 2010;Shi et al 2011;Richard et al 2011;Lancellotti and Franceschini 2013).…”

Ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity predicted to substantially decline due to climate changes in North American Pinaceae forests

“…Climate change can alter the community composition of ECMF by pushing fungi (Kipfer, Egli, Ghazoul, Moser, & Wohlgemuth, ) or their host plants (Fernandez et al, ) outside their ranges of physiological tolerance (Pickles, Egger, Massicotte, & Green, ). However, most studies to date that have examined ECMF or whole fungal community responses to simulated climate change have found fairly small effects (Fernandez et al, ; Mucha et al, ; Parrent, Morris, & Vilgalys, ; Tu et al, ) relative to natural changes in fungal communities observed along large natural gradients of temperature and precipitation (Jarvis, Woodward, Alexander, & Taylor, ; Nottingham et al, ; Peay et al, ; Talbot et al, ; Tedersoo et al, ). Yet, few datasets currently exist with spatial resolution necessary to make accurate predictions of ECMF response to climate change across relevant geographic regions (Mohan et al, ).…”

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

“…Patterns and processes governing the biogeographical distributions of organisms in their natural environments can be elucidated across geographical gradients at previously unprecedented scales (Andrew et al., , b). The environmental roles shaping fungal diversity are open for investigation, especially within a backdrop of global change (Fisher et al., ; Pärtel et al., ; Soudzilovskaia et al., ; Titeux et al., ; Mucha et al., ).…”