Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest
Fungi are an important component of microbial communities that serve a variety of important roles in nutrient cycling and are essential for plant nutrient uptake in forest soils. Distance decay of similarity (DDS) is one of the few ubiquitous phenomena in community ecology. However, the contribution...
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MDPI AG
2022-07-01
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| Series: | Forests |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1188 |
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| author | Pachchara Chaithaisong Mark Jun M. Alcantara Liang Song Yue-Hua Hu |
| author_facet | Pachchara Chaithaisong Mark Jun M. Alcantara Liang Song Yue-Hua Hu |
| author_sort | Pachchara Chaithaisong |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Fungi are an important component of microbial communities that serve a variety of important roles in nutrient cycling and are essential for plant nutrient uptake in forest soils. Distance decay of similarity (DDS) is one of the few ubiquitous phenomena in community ecology. However, the contribution of specialist and generalist fungal species in shaping DDS remains poorly investigated. Through removing operational taxonomic units (OTU) with low or high frequencies, we rigorously quantified the impact of specialists or generalists on the change in slope, initial similarity, and halving distance of DDS of undefined saprotroph, plant mutualist, and plant putative pathogen communities in a 20-ha subtropical evergreen forest plot in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. We hypothesized that (1) the soil fungal co-occurrence networks are different between the three fungal guilds; (2) specialists and generalists contribute to the spatial turnover and nestedness of beta diversity, respectively; and (3) the removal of specialists or generalists will have opposite effects on the change of slope, initial similarity, and halving distance of DDS. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that the undefined saprotroph network had a much more complicated structure than mutualist and pathogen networks. Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the two most abundant phyla in soil fungal communities. We found that partly in line with our expectations, the change in initial similarity increased and decreased when removing specialists and generalists, respectively, but there was always one exception guild of out of the three communities for the change in slope and halving distance. We identified that such change was mainly due to the change in turnover and nestedness of beta diversity. Furthermore, the results show that species turnover rather than species nestedness drove fungal beta diversity across functional guilds for both specialists and generalists. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:26:44Z |
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| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T04:26:44Z |
| publishDate | 2022-07-01 |
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| series | Forests |
| spelling | doaj.art-57123f45eaff43a9bbe92d45b3fd04342023-12-03T13:39:40ZengMDPI AGForests1999-49072022-07-01138118810.3390/f13081188Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical ForestPachchara Chaithaisong0Mark Jun M. Alcantara1Liang Song2Yue-Hua Hu3CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla 666303, ChinaCAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla 666303, ChinaCAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla 666303, ChinaCAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla 666303, ChinaFungi are an important component of microbial communities that serve a variety of important roles in nutrient cycling and are essential for plant nutrient uptake in forest soils. Distance decay of similarity (DDS) is one of the few ubiquitous phenomena in community ecology. However, the contribution of specialist and generalist fungal species in shaping DDS remains poorly investigated. Through removing operational taxonomic units (OTU) with low or high frequencies, we rigorously quantified the impact of specialists or generalists on the change in slope, initial similarity, and halving distance of DDS of undefined saprotroph, plant mutualist, and plant putative pathogen communities in a 20-ha subtropical evergreen forest plot in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. We hypothesized that (1) the soil fungal co-occurrence networks are different between the three fungal guilds; (2) specialists and generalists contribute to the spatial turnover and nestedness of beta diversity, respectively; and (3) the removal of specialists or generalists will have opposite effects on the change of slope, initial similarity, and halving distance of DDS. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that the undefined saprotroph network had a much more complicated structure than mutualist and pathogen networks. Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were the two most abundant phyla in soil fungal communities. We found that partly in line with our expectations, the change in initial similarity increased and decreased when removing specialists and generalists, respectively, but there was always one exception guild of out of the three communities for the change in slope and halving distance. We identified that such change was mainly due to the change in turnover and nestedness of beta diversity. Furthermore, the results show that species turnover rather than species nestedness drove fungal beta diversity across functional guilds for both specialists and generalists.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1188distance decay of similarityspecialistsgeneralistsFUNGuildYunnansubtropical forest |
| spellingShingle | Pachchara Chaithaisong Mark Jun M. Alcantara Liang Song Yue-Hua Hu Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest Forests distance decay of similarity specialists generalists FUNGuild Yunnan subtropical forest |
| title | Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest |
| title_full | Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest |
| title_fullStr | Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest |
| title_full_unstemmed | Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest |
| title_short | Generalists and Specialists Determine the Trend and Rate of Soil Fungal Distance Decay of Similarity in a 20-ha Subtropical Forest |
| title_sort | generalists and specialists determine the trend and rate of soil fungal distance decay of similarity in a 20 ha subtropical forest |
| topic | distance decay of similarity specialists generalists FUNGuild Yunnan subtropical forest |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1188 |
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