Aboveground and Belowground Plant Traits Explain Latitudinal Patterns in Topsoil Fungal Communities From Tropical to Cold Temperate Forests.

ABSTRACT: Soil fungi predominate the forest topsoil microbial biomass and participate in biogeochemical cycling as decomposers, symbionts, and pathogens. They are intimately associated with plants but their interactions with aboveground and belowground plant traits are unclear. Here, we evaluated soil fungal communities and their relationships with leaf and root traits in nine forest ecosystems ranging from tropical to cold temperate along a 3,700-km transect in eastern China. Basidiomycota was the most abundant phylum, followed by Ascomycota, Zygomycota, Glomeromycota, and Chytridiomycota. There was no latitudinal trend in total, saprotrophic, and pathotrophic fungal richness. However, ectomycorrhizal fungal abundance and richness increased with latitude significantly and reached maxima in temperat

SUBMITTER: Teng J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8222577 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature