Not always optimal: Fungal fruiting triggers indicate climate sensitivity in cooler regions

Abstract

Many fungi have environmentally-based fruiting triggers, which requires their quantification within the context of climate change. Species' optima were modelled for 127 commonly recorded European taxa for climate and weather conditions that were associated with their fruiting occurrences. Trends were reported based on their land-use biome associations, and attributes of species’ nutritional modes and the substrates they fruit from. The optimal fruiting conditions for over one third of the species demonstrated likely sensitivity to climate warming, whose optima predominantly clustered in the boreal forest and tundra, i.e., in regions most in peril for further warming. Niche breadths were narrower for terrestrially fruiting species, which suggested that daily weather perturbations will cause greater knock-on effects to terrestrial than wood-inhabiting taxa. All species were sensitive to extremes in daily recorded temperatures. These results add to the mounting evidence that biodiversity in high-latitude regions is increasingly threatened from warming temperatures.