Tree Species Richness and Neighborhood Effects on Ectomycorrhizal Fungal Richness and Community Structure in Boreal Forest

Abstract

Tree species identity is one of the key factors driving ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungal richness and community composition in boreal and temperate forest ecosystems, but little is known about the influence of tree species combinations and their neighborhood effects on EcM communities. To advance our understanding of host plant effects on EcM fungi, the roots of silver birch, Scots pine, and Norway spruce were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing across mature boreal forest exploratory plots of monocultures and two- and three-species mixtures in Finland. Our analyses revealed that tree species identity was an important determinant of EcM fungal community composition, but tree species richness had no significant influence on EcM fungal richness and community composition. We found that EcM fungal community composition associated with spruce depends on neighboring tree species. Our study suggests that at a regional-scale tree species identity is the primary factor determining community composition of root-associated EcM fungi alongside with tree species composition effects on EcM fungal community of spruce in mixed stands.

Mycorrhizal Fungi Associated With Juniper and Oak Seedlings Along a Disturbance Gradient in Central Mexico

“…Similarly to other studies on pine-juniper and mixed spruce forests (Hubert and Gehring, 2008;Otsing et al, 2021), disturbance and the presence of neighboring junipers significantly affected the ECM fungal community composition of oak seedlings (Figure 2B). On the other hand, the ECM fungal community structure associated with J. deppeana seedlings did not significantly change with disturbance nor with the presence of Q. rugosa.…”

“…Host preference is a key factor affecting ECM fungal diversity and community structure (Dickie, 2007;Otsing et al, 2021) and we expected that the presence of a primarily AM plant (Juniperus) would negatively affect ECM fungal diversity (Haskins and Gehring, 2004). Surprisingly, ECM fungal richness did not significantly change in the presence of juniper (Table 2), and J. deppeana seedlings in the mixed and disturbed sites associated with a diverse range of ECM fungi (Figures 3B, 4) including several OTUs that exclusively associated with juniper in the genera Entoloma, Hygrophorus, Meliniomyces, Peziza, Ramaria, Tarzetta and Trichophaea.…”

Tell me who your neighbors are: The role of spatial location and tree species identity in determining the ectomycorrhizal community composition of saplings and mature trees in a mixed conifer forest

“…Various intrinsic and extrinsic factors can shape the EMF community composition. Some intrinsic factors relate to the biological contexts of the hosts themselves such as host identity (Ishida et al, 2007) (Tedersoo et al, 2016, Otsing et al, 2021, Bogar and Kennedy, 2013) and age (Jonsson et al, 1999) while other extrinsic factors relate directly to the abiotic characteristics of the habitat such as soil properties (Erlandson et al, 2018) and moisture (Gehring et al, 2006). Nevertheless, EMF colonization takes place as roots encounter spores or existing hyphae, and therefore extrinsic biotic factors such as the spatial arrangement of the inoculum sources in relation to the seedling’s roots might play a major role in determining seedling establishment (Livne-Luzon et al, 2017, Livne-Luzon et al, 2021).…”

“…Various intrinsic and extrinsic factors can shape the EMF community composition. Some intrinsic factors relate to the biological contexts of the hosts themselves such as host identity (Ishida et al, 2007) (Tedersoo et al, 2016, Otsing et al, 2021, Bogar and Kennedy, 2013 and age (Jonsson et al, 1999) while other extrinsic factors relate directly to the abiotic characteristics of the habitat such as soil properties (Erlandson et al, 2018) and moisture (Gehring et al, 2006).…”

Fungal communities associated with forests in the Afromontane region of Ethiopia

“…In contrary to this, however, we found an indication of the positive correlation in the Shannon diversity index values of the two communities. Such association could suggests that the tree species identity can be used as a factor for macrofungal diversity (Otsing et al, 2021). and also reported positive correlations between plant identities and fungal diversity based on abundance as a measure of diversity.…”