Towards global patterns in the diversity and community structure of ectomycorrhizal fungi

TY - JOUR

T1 - Towards global patterns in the diversity and community structure of ectomycorrhizal fungi

AU - Tedersoo, Leho

AU - Bahram, Mohammad

AU - Toots, Märt

AU - Dédhiou, Abdala G.

AU - Henkel, Terry W.

AU - Kjøller, Rasmus

AU - Morris, Melissa H.

AU - Nara, Kazuhide

AU - Nouhra, Eduardo

AU - Peay, Kabir G.

AU - Põlme, Sergei

AU - Ryberg, Martin

AU - SMITH, MATTHEW E.

AU - Kõljalg, Urmas

PY - 2012/9

Y1 - 2012/9

N2 - Global species richness patterns of soil micro-organisms remain poorly understood compared to macro-organisms. We use a global analysis to disentangle the global determinants of diversity and community composition for ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi-microbial symbionts that play key roles in plant nutrition in most temperate and many tropical forest ecosystems. Host plant family has the strongest effect on the phylogenetic community composition of fungi, whereas temperature and precipitation mostly affect EcM fungal richness that peaks in the temperate and boreal forest biomes, contrasting with latitudinal patterns of macro-organisms. Tropical ecosystems experience rapid turnover of organic material and have weak soil stratification, suggesting that poor habitat conditions may contribute to the relatively low richness of EcM fungi, and perhaps other soil biota, in most tropical ecosystems. For EcM fungi, greater evolutionary age and larger total area of EcM host vegetation may also contribute to the higher diversity in temperate ecosystems. Our results provide useful biogeographic and ecological hypotheses for explaining the distribution of fungi that remain to be tested by involving next-generation sequencing techniques and relevant soil metadata. See also the Perspective by Kennedy et al

AB - Global species richness patterns of soil micro-organisms remain poorly understood compared to macro-organisms. We use a global analysis to disentangle the global determinants of diversity and community composition for ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi-microbial symbionts that play key roles in plant nutrition in most temperate and many tropical forest ecosystems. Host plant family has the strongest effect on the phylogenetic community composition of fungi, whereas temperature and precipitation mostly affect EcM fungal richness that peaks in the temperate and boreal forest biomes, contrasting with latitudinal patterns of macro-organisms. Tropical ecosystems experience rapid turnover of organic material and have weak soil stratification, suggesting that poor habitat conditions may contribute to the relatively low richness of EcM fungi, and perhaps other soil biota, in most tropical ecosystems. For EcM fungi, greater evolutionary age and larger total area of EcM host vegetation may also contribute to the higher diversity in temperate ecosystems. Our results provide useful biogeographic and ecological hypotheses for explaining the distribution of fungi that remain to be tested by involving next-generation sequencing techniques and relevant soil metadata. See also the Perspective by Kennedy et al

KW - global analysis, latitudinal gradient of diversity, macro-ecology, soil microbes, temperature

U2 - 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2012.05602.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2012.05602.x

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 22568722

SN - 0962-1083

VL - 21

SP - 4160

EP - 4170

JO - Molecular Ecology

JF - Molecular Ecology

IS - 17

ER -