Dataset Information

Characterizing the Assemblage of Wood-Decay Fungi in the Forests of Northwest Arkansas.

ABSTRACT: The study reported herein represents an effort to characterize the wood-decay fungi associated with three study areas representative of the forest ecosystems found in northwest Arkansas. In addition to specimens collected in the field, small pieces of coarse woody debris (usually dead branches) were collected from the three study areas, returned to the laboratory, and placed in plastic incubation chambers to which water was added. Fruiting bodies of fungi appearing in these chambers over a period of several months were collected and processed in the same manner as specimens associated with decaying wood in the field. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) ribosomal DNA region was sequenced, and these sequences were blasted against the NCBI database. A total of 320 different fungal taxa were recorded, the majority of which could be identified to species. Two hundred thirteen taxa were recorded as field collections, and 68 taxa were recorded from the incubation chambers. Thirty-nine sequences could be recorded only as unidentified taxa. Collectively, the specimens of fungi collected in the forests of northwest Arkansas belong to 64 and 128 families and genera, respectively.

SUBMITTER: Alshammari N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8073185 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Characterizing the Assemblage of Wood-Decay Fungi in the Forests of Northwest Arkansas.

Alshammari Nawaf N Ameen Fuad F AlKahtani Muneera D F MDF Stephenson Steven S

Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) 20210416 4

The study reported herein represents an effort to characterize the wood-decay fungi associated with three study areas representative of the forest ecosystems found in northwest Arkansas. In addition to specimens collected in the field, small pieces of coarse woody debris (usually dead branches) were collected from the three study areas, returned to the laboratory, and placed in plastic incubation chambers to which water was added. Fruiting bodies of fungi appearing in these chambers over a perio ...[more]

PMID: 33923852

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Project description:BackgroundThe majority of wood decomposing fungi are mushroom-forming Agaricomycetes, which exhibit two main modes of plant cell wall decomposition: white rot, in which all plant cell wall components are degraded, including lignin, and brown rot, in which lignin is modified but not appreciably removed. Previous studies suggested that brown rot fungi tend to be specialists of gymnosperm hosts and that brown rot promotes gymnosperm specialization. However, these hypotheses were based on analyses of limited datasets of Agaricomycetes. Overcoming this limitation, we used a phylogeny with 1157 species integrating available sequences, assembled decay mode characters from the literature, and coded host specialization using the newly developed R package, rusda.ResultsWe found that most brown rot fungi are generalists or gymnosperm specialists, whereas most white rot fungi are angiosperm specialists. A six-state model of the evolution of host specialization revealed high transition rates between generalism and specialization in both decay modes. However, while white rot lineages switched most frequently to angiosperm specialists, brown rot lineages switched most frequently to generalism. A time-calibrated phylogeny revealed that Agaricomycetes is older than the flowering plants but many of the large clades originated after the diversification of the angiosperms in the Cretaceous.ConclusionsOur results challenge the current view that brown rot fungi are primarily gymnosperm specialists and reveal intensive white rot specialization to angiosperm hosts. We thus suggest that brown rot associated convergent loss of lignocellulose degrading enzymes was correlated with host generalism, rather than gymnosperm specialism. A likelihood model of host specialization evolution together with a time-calibrated phylogeny further suggests that the rise of the angiosperms opened a new mega-niche for wood-decay fungi, which was exploited particularly well by white rot lineages.

Dataset Information

Characterizing the Assemblage of Wood-Decay Fungi in the Forests of Northwest Arkansas.

Publications

Characterizing the Assemblage of Wood-Decay Fungi in the Forests of Northwest Arkansas.

Similar Datasets

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