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Environmental Controls on Fungal Community Composition and Abundance Over 3 Years in Native and Degraded Shrublands

  • Soil Microbiology
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Abstract

Soil fungal communities have high local diversity and turnover, but the relative contribution of environmental and regional drivers to those patterns remains poorly understood. Local factors that contribute to fungal diversity include soil properties and the plant community, but there is also evidence for regional dispersal limitation in some fungal communities. We used different plant communities with different soil conditions and experimental manipulations of both vegetation and dispersal to distinguish among these factors. Specifically, we compared native shrublands with former native shrublands that had been disturbed or converted to pasture, resulting in soils progressively more enriched in carbon and nutrients. We tested the role of vegetation via active removal, and we manipulated dispersal by adding living soil inoculum from undisturbed native sites. Soil fungi were tracked for 3 years, with samples taken at ten time points from June 2006 to June 2009. We found that soil fungal abundance, richness, and community composition responded primarily to soil properties, which in this case were a legacy of plant community degradation. In contrast, dispersal had no effect on soil fungi. Temporal variation in soil fungi was partly related to drought status, yet it was much broader in native sites compared to pastures, suggesting some buffering due to the increased soil resources in the pasture sites. The persistence of soil fungal communities over 3 years in this study suggests that soil properties can act as a strong local environmental filter. Largely persistent soil fungal communities also indicate the potential for strong biotic resistance and soil legacies, which presents a challenge for both the prediction of how fungi respond to environmental change and our ability to manipulate fungi in efforts such as ecosystem restoration.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to E. Menges, H. Swain, R. Boughton, K. Main, S. Smith, and the staff of Archbold Biological Station for access to the sites and local support. Assistance with fieldwork and lab analyses was provided by E. Brault, S. Hamman, N. Johnson, S. Kivlin, and other members of the Hawkes Lab. Previous versions of this manuscript were significantly improved by comments from S. Kivlin, E. Menges, B. Sikes, and four anonymous reviewers. Support for the project was provided by the National Research Initiative of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service grant number 2006-35101-16575 to CVH.

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  1. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Clare Glinka & Christine V. Hawkes

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Glinka, C., Hawkes, C.V. Environmental Controls on Fungal Community Composition and Abundance Over 3 Years in Native and Degraded Shrublands. Microb Ecol 68, 807–817 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-014-0443-0

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