Abstract
Fungal community composition in the Anthropocene is driven by rapid changes in environmental conditions caused by human activities. This study examines the relative importance of two global change drivers – atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition and annual grass invasion – on structuring fungal communities in a California chaparral ecosystem, with emphasis on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. We used molecular markers, functional groupings, generalized linear statistics and joint distribution modeling, to examine how environmental variables structure taxonomic and functional composition of fungal communities. Invasive grasses had a lower richness and relative abundance of symbiotic fungi (both AMF and other fungi) compared to native shrubs. We found a higher richness and abundance of rhizophilic (e.g. Glomeraceae) and edaphophilic (e.g. Gigasporaceae) AMF with increasing soil NO3. Our findings suggest that invasive persistence may decrease the presence of multiple soil symbionts that native species depend on for pathogen protection and increased access to soil resources.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 107-117 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Fungal Ecology |
| Volume | 40 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We thank Jeff Diez and Courtney Collins, University of California Riverside, for guidance on statistical analyses as well as Catherine Gehring, Northern Arizona University, for facilitating fungal sequencing work. We thank Tye Morgan at USDA-ARS Soils Laboratory, Reno, NV for assistance with processing soils for bicarbonate-extractable P. We thank members of the Allen and Aronson labs for comments and feedback on the manuscript. We also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their feedback, which helped to improve this manuscript. Funding was provided by University of California, Riverside, Department of Botany and Plant Sciences and the Center for Conservation Biology, as well as a graduate fellowship from NASA MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO) grant number NNX15AP99A, and a graduate fellowship from the University of California's Institute for the Study of Ecological and Evolutionary Climate Impacts (ISEECI), funded by a UC Presidential Research Catalyst Award. We thank Jeff Diez and Courtney Collins, University of California Riverside, for guidance on statistical analyses as well as Catherine Gehring, Northern Arizona University, for facilitating fungal sequencing work. We thank Tye Morgan at USDA-ARS Soils Laboratory, Reno, NV for assistance with processing soils for bicarbonate-extractable P. We thank members of the Allen and Aronson labs for comments and feedback on the manuscript. We also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their feedback, which helped to improve this manuscript. Funding was provided by University of California, Riverside , Department of Botany and Plant Sciences and the Center for Conservation Biology , as well as a graduate fellowship from NASA MUREP Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO) grant number NNX15AP99A , and a graduate fellowship from the University of California’s Institute for the Study of Ecological and Evolutionary Climate Impacts (ISEECI) , funded by a UC Presidential Research Catalyst Award.
Keywords
- AMF
- California chaparral
- Community assembly
- Community ecology
- Fungi
- Global change
- Mycorrhizae
- Nitrogen deposition
- Plant invasion
- Soil
