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Douglas-fir ectomycorrhizae in 40- and 400-year-old stands: mycobiont availability to late successional western hemlock

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Abstract

We investigated ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi in forest stands containing both early successional Douglas-fir and late successional western hemlock at two points in the typical stand development by identifying EM fungi from roots of Douglas-fir and western hemlock in mixed stands. In an early seral stage forest, EM roots of western hemlock seedlings and intermingling 40-year-old Douglas-fir were sampled. In a late seral stage forest, EM roots of trees of both species were sampled in a 400-year-old stand. We use molecular approaches to identify the symbionts from field samples in this descriptive study. In the early seral stage study, >95% of the western hemlock root tips by biomass were colonized by fungi also colonizing Douglas-fir roots. This result supports the prediction that western hemlock can associate with fungi in Douglas-fir EM networks. In the same study, fungi specific to Douglas-fir colonized 14% of its EM root tips. In the late seral stage study, 14% of the western hemlock root tips were colonized by fungi also observed in association with Douglas-fir, a result strongly influenced by sampling issues and likely represents a conservative estimate of multiple host fungi in this old growth setting. Fungi specific to Douglas-fir colonized 25% of its root tip biomass in the old growth study, in tight coralloid clusters within five of the 24 soil samples. The trends revealed in this study corroborate earlier studies suggesting a predominance of multiple host fungi in mixed communities of EM plants. The role of host-specific fungi in these stands remains unclear.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jane Smith for generously allowing us to collect belowground samples from one of her permanent sporocarp plots and to sample sporocarp voucher collections for DNA extraction and subsequent molecular analysis; Doni McKay for time and effort in supporting the laboratory; Joyce Eberhart for advice on morphological typing of EM roots; Dan Luoma for helpful advice leading to the identification of Suillus punctatipes; Annette Kretzer for access to her aligned sequence database for the genus Suillus; Steve Miller for help identifying Russula spp. This project was funded in part by support from the US Forest Service and NRI Competitive Grants Program/USDA award 99-35107-7843.

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  1. Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    T. R. Horton & K. Hood

  2. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    R. Molina

  3. Present address: State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 241 Illick Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13210-2788, USA

    T. R. Horton

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Horton, T.R., Molina, R. & Hood, K. Douglas-fir ectomycorrhizae in 40- and 400-year-old stands: mycobiont availability to late successional western hemlock. Mycorrhiza 15, 393–403 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-004-0339-9

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