Host and soil properties are major drivers of ectomycorrhizal fungi in
alpine coniferous forests
Abstract
Mycorrhizal symbioses are essential for host nutrition and productivity
in most forest ecosystems. Although we have gained tremendous insight
into their evolution, physiology and partner identity, the knowledge on
the deterministic forces in the assembly of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungal
community is limited over broad geographical ranges, especially for
those associated with conifers in alpine forests. We carried out an
analysis of ECM fungal community at 65 sites of monodominant stands that
covered a large range of contrasting environmental gradients and
included 11 conifer species in the alpine regions of Qinghai-Tibetan
Plateau. We found that coniferous species from Pinus, Piceae and Abies
were differed in their community composition and diversity despite the
dominance of Basidiomycota and Ascomycota in coniferous trees of the
Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Host and soil factors explained most variation
in ECM diversity; and of the host-related factors, root stoichiometry
(i.e., root C/N, C/P) was suggested to be responsible for the shifts of
ECM fungal community composition and diversity, whereas among soil
variables, soil inorganic N accounted for the largest variation in ECM
fungal composition and the fungal diversity decreased with soil
inorganic N. Overall, we provided the first baseline data for ECM fungi
in the alpine coniferous forests. Furthermore, we identified host and
soil factors as their major drivers that convinced the hypothesis that
host and environmental filtering act as large-scale controls of ECM
fungi.