Dataset Information

Belowground responses to elevation in a changing cloud forest.

ABSTRACT: Few studies have investigated how soil fungal communities respond to elevation, especially within TMCF (tropical montane cloud forests). We used an elevation gradient in a TMCF in Costa Rica to determine how soil properties, processes, and community composition of fungi change in response to elevation and across seasons. As elevation increased, soil temperature and soil pH decreased, while soil moisture and soil C:N ratios increased with elevation. Responses of these properties varied seasonally. Fungal abundance increased with elevation during wet and dry seasons. Fungal community composition shifted in response to elevation, and to a lesser extent by season. These shifts were accompanied by varying responses of important fungal functional groups during the wet season and the relative abundance of certain fungal phyla. We suggest that elevation and the responses of certain fungal functional groups may be structuring fungal communities along this elevation gradient. TMCF are ecosystems that are rapidly changing due to climate change. Our study suggests that these changes may affect how fungal communities are structured.

SUBMITTER: Looby CI

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4767876 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Belowground responses to elevation in a changing cloud forest.

Looby Caitlin I CI Maltz Mia R MR Treseder Kathleen K KK

Ecology and evolution 20160224 7

Few studies have investigated how soil fungal communities respond to elevation, especially within TMCF (tropical montane cloud forests). We used an elevation gradient in a TMCF in Costa Rica to determine how soil properties, processes, and community composition of fungi change in response to elevation and across seasons. As elevation increased, soil temperature and soil pH decreased, while soil moisture and soil C:N ratios increased with elevation. Responses of these properties varied seasonally ...[more]

PMID: 27066220

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Project description:BackgroundCloud forests, characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover and fragmented distribution, are one of the most threatened habitats, especially in the Neotropics. Tree ferns are among the most conspicuous elements in these forests, and ferns are restricted to regions in which minimum temperatures rarely drop below freezing and rainfall is high and evenly distributed around the year. Current phylogeographic data suggest that some of the cloud forest-adapted species remained in situ or expanded to the lowlands during glacial cycles and contracted allopatrically during the interglacials. Although the observed genetic signals of population size changes of cloud forest-adapted species including tree ferns correspond to predicted changes by Pleistocene climate change dynamics, the observed patterns of intraspecific lineage divergence showed temporal incongruence.MethodsHere we combined phylogenetic analyses, ancestral area reconstruction, and divergence time estimates with climatic and altitudinal data (environmental space) for phenotypic traits of tree fern species to make inferences about evolutionary processes in deep time. We used phylogenetic Bayesian inference and geographic and altitudinal distribution of tree ferns to investigate ancestral area and elevation and environmental preferences of Mesoamerican tree ferns. The phylogeny was then used to estimate divergence times and ask whether the ancestral area and elevation and environmental shifts were linked to climatic events and historical climatic preferences.ResultsBayesian trees retrieved Cyathea, Alsophyla, Gymnosphaera and Sphaeropteris in monophyletic clades. Splits for species in these genera found in Mesoamerican cloud forests are recent, from the Neogene to the Quaternary, Australia was identified as the ancestral area for the clades of these genera, except for Gymnosphaera that was Mesoamerica. Climate tolerance was not divergent from hypothesized ancestors for the most significant variables or elevation. For elevational shifts, we found repeated change from low to high elevations.ConclusionsOur data suggest that representatives of Cyatheaceae main lineages migrated from Australia to Mesoamerican cloud forests in different times and have persisted in these environmentally unstable areas but extant species diverged recentrly from their ancestors.

Project description:1. The Andes are predicted to warm by 3-5 °C this century with the potential to alter the processes regulating carbon (C) cycling in these tropical forest soils. This rapid warming is expected to stimulate soil microbial respiration and change plant species distributions, thereby affecting the quantity and quality of C inputs to the soil and influencing the quantity of soil-derived CO2 released to the atmosphere. 2. We studied tropical lowland, premontane and montane forest soils taken from along a 3200-m elevation gradient located in south-east Andean Peru. We determined how soil microbial communities and abiotic soil properties differed with elevation. We then examined how these differences in microbial composition and soil abiotic properties affected soil C-cycling processes, by amending soils with C substrates varying in complexity and measuring soil heterotrophic respiration (RH). 3. Our results show that there were consistent patterns of change in soil biotic and abiotic properties with elevation. Microbial biomass and the abundance of fungi relative to bacteria increased significantly with elevation, and these differences in microbial community composition were strongly correlated with greater soil C content and C:N (nitrogen) ratios. We also found that RH increased with added C substrate quality and quantity and was positively related to microbial biomass and fungal abundance. 4. Statistical modelling revealed that RH responses to changing C inputs were best predicted by soil pH and microbial community composition, with the abundance of fungi relative to bacteria, and abundance of gram-positive relative to gram-negative bacteria explaining much of the model variance. 5. Synthesis. Our results show that the relative abundance of microbial functional groups is an important determinant of RH responses to changing C inputs along an extensive tropical elevation gradient in Andean Peru. Although we do not make an experimental test of the effects of climate change on soil, these results challenge the assumption that different soil microbial communities will be 'functionally equivalent' as climate change progresses, and they emphasize the need for better ecological metrics of soil microbial communities to help predict C cycle responses to climate change in tropical biomes.

Project description:Balancing economic, ecological, and social values has long been a challenge in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, where conflict over timber harvest and old-growth habitat on public lands has been contentious for the past several decades. The Northwest Forest Plan, adopted two decades ago to guide management on federal lands, is currently being revised as the region searches for a balance between sustainable timber yields and habitat for sensitive species. In addition, climate change imposes a high degree of uncertainty on future forest productivity, sustainability of timber harvest, wildfire risk, and species habitat. We evaluated the long-term, landscape-scale trade-offs among carbon (C) storage, timber yield, and old forest habitat given projected climate change and shifts in forest management policy across 2.1 million hectares of forests in the Oregon Coast Range. Projections highlight the divergence between private and public lands under business-as-usual forest management, where private industrial forests are heavily harvested and many public (especially federal) lands increase C and old forest over time but provide little timber. Three alternative management scenarios altering the amount and type of timber harvest show widely varying levels of ecosystem C and old-forest habitat. On federal lands, ecological forestry practices also allowed a simultaneous increase in old forest and natural early-seral habitat. The ecosystem C implications of shifts away from current practices were large, with current practices retaining up to 105 Tg more C than the alternative scenarios by the end of the century. Our results suggest climate change is likely to increase forest productivity by 30-41% and total ecosystem C storage by 11-15% over the next century as warmer winter temperatures allow greater forest productivity in cooler months. These gains in C storage are unlikely to be offset by wildfire under climate change, due to the legacy of management and effective fire suppression. Our scenarios of future conditions can inform policy makers, land managers, and the public about the potential effects of land management alternatives, climate change, and the trade-offs that are inherent to management and policy in the region.

Dataset Information

Belowground responses to elevation in a changing cloud forest.

Publications

Belowground responses to elevation in a changing cloud forest.

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