Environment and host as large-scale controls of ectomycorrhizal fungi

van der Linde, S., Suz, L. M., Orme, C. D. L., Cox, F., Andreae, H., Asi, E., Atkinson, B., Benham, S., Carroll, C., Cools, N., De Vos, B., Dietrich, H.-P., Eichhorn, J., Gehrmann, J., Grebenc, T., Gweon, H. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6218-6301, Hansen, K., Jacob, F., Kristöfel, F., Lech, P., Manninger, M., Martin, J., Meesenburg, H., Merilä, P., Nicolas, M., Pavlenda, P., Rautio, P., Schaub, M., Schröck, H.-W., Seidling, W., Šrámek, V., Thimonier, A., Thomsen, I. M., Titeux, H., Vanguelova, E., Verstraeten, A., Vesterdal, L., Waldner, P., Wijk, S., Zhang, Y., Žlindra, D. and Bidartondo, M. I. (2018) Environment and host as large-scale controls of ectomycorrhizal fungi. Nature, 558. pp. 243-248. ISSN 0028-0836 doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0189-9

Abstract/Summary

Explaining the large-scale diversity of soil organisms that drive biogeochemical processes—and their responses to environmental change—is critical. However, identifying consistent drivers of belowground diversity and abundance for some soil organisms at large spatial scales remains problematic. Here we investigate a major guild, the ectomycorrhizal fungi, across European forests at a spatial scale and resolution that is—to our knowledge—unprecedented, to explore key biotic and abiotic predictors of ectomycorrhizal diversity and to identify dominant responses and thresholds for change across complex environmental gradients. We show the effect of 38 host, environment, climate and geographical variables on ectomycorrhizal diversity, and define thresholds of community change for key variables. We quantify host specificity and reveal plasticity in functional traits involved in soil foraging across gradients. We conclude that environmental and host factors explain most of the variation in ectomycorrhizal diversity, that the environmental thresholds used as major ecosystem assessment tools need adjustment and that the importance of belowground specificity and plasticity has previously been underappreciated.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/77579
Identification Number/DOI	10.1038/s41586-018-0189-9
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
Publisher Statement	In the HTML version of this Article, author ‘Filipa Cox’ had no affiliation in the author list, although she was correctly associated with affiliation 3 (Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK) in the PDF. In addition, the blue circles for ‘oak’ were missing from Extended Data Fig. 1. These errors have been corrected online.
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