10.5061/DRYAD.H9W0VT4DR
Steidinger, Brian
0000-0003-1001-7642
Stanford University
Ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity predicted to substantially decline due to
climate changes in North American Pinaceae forests.
Dryad
dataset
2019
2020-12-30T00:00:00Z
2020-12-30T00:00:00Z
en
85042 bytes
3
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
AIM: Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECMF) are partners in a globally distributed
tree symbiosis implicated in most major ecosystem functions. However,
resilience of ECMF to future climates is uncertain. We forecast these
changes over the extent of North American Pinaceae forests. LOCATION: 68
sites from North American Pinaceae forests ranging from Florida to Ontario
in the east and southern California to Alaska in the west. TAXON:
Ectomycorrhizal fungi (Asco- and Basidiomycetes). METHODS: We
characterized ECMF communities at each site using molecular methods and
modeled climatic drivers of diversity and community composition with
general additive, generalized dissimilarity models, and Taxonomic
Indicator Threshold Analysis (TITAN). Next, we projected our models across
the extent of North American Pinaceae forests and forecast ECMF responses
to climate changes in these forests over the next 50 years. RESULTS: We
predict median declines in ECMF species richness as high as 26% in
Pinaceae forests throughout a climate zone comprising more than 3.5
million square kilometers of North America (an area twice that of Alaska
state). Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions can reduce these declines,
but not prevent them. The existence of multiple diversity optima along
climate gradients suggest regionally divergent trajectories for North
American ECMF, which is corroborated by corresponding ECMF community
thresholds identified in TITAN models. Warming of forests along the
boreal-temperate ecotone results in projected ECMF species loss and
declines in the relative abundance of long-distance foraging ECMF species,
whereas warming of eastern temperate forests has the opposite effect. MAIN
CONCLUSIONS: Our results reveal potentially unavoidable ECMF
species-losses over the next 50 years, which is likely to have profound
(if yet unclear) effects of ECMF associated biogeochemical cycles.
The file can be accessed in the R statistical computing software and
manipulated using the package “phyloseq.” It contains an OTU table,
taxonomy information, and sample data from the 68 sites analyzed in our
manuscript.