Fungal network responses to grazing

Boddy, Lynne; Wood, Jonathan; Redman, Emily Clare; Hynes, Juliet; Fricker, Mark D.

doi:10.1016/j.fgb.2010.01.006

Cited by 40 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The taxonomic affiliation and presumed function are given. Only taxa with frequencies ≥75% are listed, see Electronic Supplementary Material for a complete list The fungal response to soil fauna grazing activity depends on environmental variables and is taxon-specific, some fungi decreasing respiration activity, others reacting with compensatory growth [3,4,7,8,20,55].…”

Section: Seasonal Dynamics Of Microbial Biomass Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal Growth and Biomass Development is Boosted by Plants in Snow-Covered Soil

2012

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Soil microbial communities follow distinct seasonal cycles which result in drastic changes in processes involving soil nutrient availability. The biomass of fungi has been reported to be highest during winter, but is fungal growth really occurring in frozen soil? And what is the effect of plant cover on biomass formation and on the composition of fungal communities? To answer these questions, we monitored microbial biomass N, ergosterol, and the amount of fungal hyphae during summer and winter in vegetated and unvegetated soils of an alpine primary successional habitat. The winter fungal communities were identified by rDNA ITS clone libraries. Winter soil temperatures ranged between -0.6°C and -0.1°C in snow-covered soil. We found distinct seasonal patterns for all biomass parameters, with highest biomass concentrations during winter in snow-covered soil. The presence of plant cover had a significant positive effect on the amount of biomass in the soil, but the type of plant cover (plant species) was not a significant factor. A mean hyphal ingrowth of 5.6 m g(-1) soil was detected in snow-covered soil during winter, thus clearly proving fungal growth during winter in snow-covered soil. Winter fungal communities had a typical species composition: saprobial fungi were dominating, among them many basidiomycete yeasts. Plant cover had no influence on the composition of winter fungal communities.

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Section: Seasonal Dynamics Of Microbial Biomass Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fungal Growth and Biomass Development is Boosted by Plants in Snow-Covered Soil

2012

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“…For example, as a fungal network grows, it tends to change from a branching tree to a more highly cross-linked network through hyphal and cord fusions that connect to each other. The core parts of a fungal network subsequently start to thin out as it explores further until resources run out; the network progressively recycles more cords and again becomes a very sparse network [12,18]. Some of the clearest clusters in the functional taxonomy correlate with substrate, as there are distinct branches in the taxonomy that consist predominantly of Pv grown on black sand.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesoscale analyses of fungal networks as an approach for quantifying phenotypic traits

Lee¹,

Fricker

Porter

2016

jcomplexnetw

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We investigate the application of mesoscopic response functions (MRFs) to characterize a large set of networks of fungi and slime moulds grown under a wide variety of different experimental treatments, including inter-species competition and attack by fungivores. We construct 'structural networks' by estimating cord conductances (which yield edge weights) from the experimental data, and we construct 'functional networks' by calculating edge weights based on how much nutrient traffic is predicted to occur along each edge. Both types of networks have the same topology, and we compute MRFs for both families of networks to illustrate two different ways of constructing taxonomies to group the networks into clusters of related fungi and slime moulds. Although both network taxonomies generate intuitively sensible groupings of networks across species, treatments, and laboratories, we find that clustering using the functional-network measure appears to give groups with lower intra-group variation in species or treatments. We argue that MRFs provide a useful quantitative analysis of network behaviour that can (1) help summarize an expanding set of increasingly complex biological networks and (2) help extract information that captures subtle changes in intra-specific and inter-specific phenotypic traits that are integral to a mechanistic understanding of fungal behaviour and ecology. As an accompaniment to our paper, we also make a large data set of fungal networks available in the public domain.

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“…Network formation is hypothesized to be an adaptation to foraging, particularly where resources have a heterogeneous distribution in time and space, or to allowing a more rapid capture, exploitation, and defense of new territory. Network architecture is remodeled during growth, branching, and fusion (3, 21, 22), making it highly responsive to variations in resource availability or in the amount of damage incurred (7,65). In networked organisms, such as filamentous fungi, cytoplasmic continuity facilitates long-distance transport of resources at speeds much faster than those with diffusion alone through cytoplasmic streaming (26,50,73) or mass flow (14) without the elaboration of a separate vascular system (32).…”

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Physiological Significance of Network Organization in Fungi

et al. 2012

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bThe evolution of multicellularity has occurred in diverse lineages and in multiple ways among eukaryotic species. For plants and fungi, multicellular forms are derived from ancestors that failed to separate following cell division, thus retaining cytoplasmic continuity between the daughter cells. In networked organisms, such as filamentous fungi, cytoplasmic continuity facilitates the long-distance transport of resources without the elaboration of a separate vascular system. Nutrient translocation in fungi is essential for nutrient cycling in ecosystems, mycorrhizal symbioses, virulence, and substrate utilization. It has been proposed that an interconnected mycelial network influences resource translocation, but the theory has not been empirically tested. Here we show, by using mutants that disrupt network formation in Neurospora crassa (⌬so mutant, no fusion; ⌬Prm-1 mutant, ϳ50% fusion), that the translocation of labeled nutrients is adversely affected in homogeneous environments and is even more severely impacted in heterogeneous environments. We also show that the ability to share resources and genetic exchange between colonies (via hyphal fusion) is very limited in mature colonies, in contrast to in young colonies and germlings that readily share nutrients and genetic resources. The differences in genetic/resource sharing between young and mature colonies were associated with variations in colony architecture (hyphal differentiation/diameters, branching patterns, and angles). Thus, the ability to share resources and genetic material between colonies is developmentally regulated and is a function of the age of a colony. This study highlights the necessity of hyphal fusion for efficient nutrient translocation within an N. crassa colony but also shows that established N. crassa colonies do not share resources in a significant manner.T he transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms has occurred on multiple occasions in diverse lineages over considerable evolutionary time (28,38,68). While an initial adaptive advantage may have accrued simply from being larger, multicellular organisms subsequently developed increased differentiation and specialization, leading to a more efficient division of labor (8). Multicellularity may have arisen by either the aggregation of individual cells to form a colony or by the failure of daughter cells to separate following division. Comparisons of unicellular animals and their multicellular relatives support the view that multicellularity is associated with expansion of the genetic families involved in cell adhesion, cell-cell signaling, and cell differentiation (63). In contrast, multicellular plants and fungi are derived from ancestors that failed to separate following cell division, providing an opportunity to retain cytoplasmic continuity between daughter cells (75). Thus, plant cells are linked by tissue-specific patterns of plasmodesmata (41, 47), while fungi are either coenocytic or have perforated septa that allow intercompartmental exchange (40).In ascomycete an...

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Fungal network responses to grazing

Cited by 40 publications

References 41 publications

Fungal Growth and Biomass Development is Boosted by Plants in Snow-Covered Soil

Fungal Growth and Biomass Development is Boosted by Plants in Snow-Covered Soil

Mesoscale analyses of fungal networks as an approach for quantifying phenotypic traits

Physiological Significance of Network Organization in Fungi

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