Fungal Ecology最新文献

The present study investigated the behavior and wood decay ability of mycelial network of Phanerochaete velutina, a cord-forming fungus, on multiple wood blocks. We placed well-colonized wood blocks in two spatial arrangements (Circle and Cross) on a soil plate and compared the development of the mycelial network and wood decay over 116 days. In the Circle arrangement, the degree of connection (number of connected cords) of the blocks ranged from 0 to 8, with no significant differences observed across positions. However, in the Cross arrangement, the outer blocks exhibited a greater degree of connection than the inner blocks. The mass loss of the wood block was positively associated with the degree of connection and was significantly smaller in the Cross than in the Circle arrangement. These findings suggest that fungal mycelium can “recognize” the difference in the spatial arrangement of wood blocks as part of their wood decay activity.

Habitat loss is the main driver of biodiversity decline worldwide. An immediate consequence can be extinction debt, i.e. time-delayed extinction of species following habitat loss. We tested extinction debt in terricolous lichen communities in 45 patches of lowland open dry habitats in the western Po Plain (northern Italy) considering richness of four species groups: total, red-listed, rare, and common species. The distance from the currently nearest patch and the annual precipitation correlated – negatively and positively, respectively – with all the groups. Total, red-listed, and rare species were positively related to the oldest available patch extent (1954). Common species were positively related to the current (2020) patch extent. Total and red-listed species were negatively related to the extent difference (1954–2020). Results reveal an extinction debt which has not yet been completely paid and that could be exacerbated by climate change. To counteract this trend, management should conserve habitat patches with the highest species richness, improve connectivity between habitat patches, and provide suitable microrefugia for species with different ecological requirements.

Fungi are increasingly recognized as key players in various extreme environments. Here we present an analysis of publicly-sourced metagenomes from global extreme environments, focusing on fungal taxonomy and function. The majority of 855 selected metagenomes contained scaffolds assigned to fungi. Relative abundance of fungi was as high as 10% of protein-coding genes with taxonomic annotation, with up to 289 fungal genera per sample. Despite taxonomic clustering by environment, fungal communities were more dissimilar than archaeal and bacterial communities, both for within- and between-environment comparisons. Relatively abundant fungal classes in extreme environments included Dothideomycetes, Eurotiomycetes, Leotiomycetes, Pezizomycetes, Saccharomycetes, and Sordariomycetes. Broad generalists and prolific aerial spore formers were the most relatively abundant fungal genera detected in most of the extreme environments, bringing up the question of whether they are actively growing in those environments or just surviving as spores. More specialized fungi were common in some environments, such as zoosporic taxa in cryosphere water and hot springs. Relative abundances of genes involved in adaptation to general, thermal, oxidative, and osmotic stress were greatest in soda lake, acid mine drainage, and cryosphere water samples.

Hollow trees are crucial for forest biodiversity but are becoming increasingly rare in many ecosystems, including the Scots pine forests of northern Europe. Here, we inoculated heartwood of live Scots pine trees with the fungal keystone species Porodaedalia pini to initiate tree hollowing. The fungus was inoculated in 50-, 110- and 170-year old stands, using wood dowels containing mycelia. Three different strains were used to test for intraspecific variation. Molecular analysis of samples from inoculated trees seven years after treatment showed that 67% were successfully colonised, with no differences between stands. Fungal strain had no effect on colonisation success. Our findings suggest that inoculation with P. pini has the potential to be an efficient method to restore a key ecological process, tree hollowing, in degraded Scots pine forests. The possibility of initiating the process even in young trees may be a way to accelerate the formation of hollow pines in younger forests.

Morchella galilaea is unique among morels by its autumnal fruiting and a worldwide but disjunct distribution, strongly biased towards islands. The drivers of this reversed seasonality and transcontinental dispersal remain poorly understood. New records of M. galilaea from several islands of the Mediterranean, and from the Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, all unveiled here, invited us to revisit and discuss the biogeography, phenology and ecology of this intriguing morel. Our ecological and molecular findings do not support recent anthropogenic introductions as causal for the tropism of M. galilaea for islands. Instead, we postulate a tentative model of evolution in which the paleotropical origins of the species may be responsible for the release of strict seasonality constraints inherited early during the genus’ evolutionary history.

A transect in the German limestone Alps was monitored over ten years for nivicolous myxomycetes to test if species display stable altitudinal belts for fruiting. The data set comprised 1368 barcoded specimens assigned to 112 ribotypes forming 51 ribogroups. Ribogroups were largely consistent with 35 identified morphospecies, although in eleven cases a morphospecies included several ribogroups. Fructification abundance correlated with duration of the snow cover inferred from data loggers placed at ground height. Morphospecies, ribogroups, and ribotypes showed a peak of fructification abundance at different elevations in different years. Species composition, not abundances, showed a high overlap with soil metabarcoding data. Thirteen ribogroups detected in the metabarcoding data set were never found as fructifications. This survey demonstrates that nivicolous myxomycetes are opportunists, which are likely to persist as trophic or resting stages independent from snow cover, but fruit only in altitudes and years with snow cover stable over several months.