Search

The soil fungal diversity and community partitioning between the bulk soil and stone compartments was investigated using PCR based approaches targeting the barcoding internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of rDNA and the laccase encoding functional gene as genetic markers. Soil samples were collected from the B-horizon of spruce and beech forests at the Hainich Biodiversity Exploratory, central Germany. The targeted markers were amplified from the respective DNA extracts using general fungal primers and basidiomycete laccase gene specific primers, cloned and sequenced. Differences in the fungal community composition between the two forest types and the soil compartments were indicated by both markers. When the effects of ecological factors were considered, the two markers produced different patterns of results. The ITS rDNA marker revealed communities principally influenced by forest type, while those detected with the functional marker were mainly affected by soil pH. The fungal communities detected by the functional marker in particular, differed significantly between soils and stones, indicating that laccase-producing fungi are specifically adapted to degrade organic matter in soils rather than weathering of stones. The study underlines the fact that coherent and complementary results may be obtained with both genetic markers used.

Although temporal heterogeneity is a well-accepted driver of biodiversity, effects of interannual variation in land-use intensity (LUI) have not been addressed yet. Additionally, responses to land use can differ greatly among different organisms; therefore, overall effects of land-use on total local biodiversity are hardly known. To test for effects of LUI (quantified as the combined intensity of fertilization, grazing, and mowing) and interannual variation in LUI (SD in LUI across time), we introduce a unique measure of whole-ecosystem biodiversity, multidiversity. This synthesizes individual diversity measures across up to 49 taxonomic groups of plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria from 150 grasslands. Multidiversity declined with increasing LUI among grasslands, particularly for rarer species and aboveground organisms, whereas common species and belowground groups were less sensitive. However, a high level of interannual variation in LUI increased overall multidiversity at low LUI and was even more beneficial for rarer species because it slowed the rate at which the multidiversity of rare species declined with increasing LUI. In more intensively managed grasslands, the diversity of rarer species was, on average, 18% of the maximum diversity across all grasslands when LUI was static over time but increased to 31% of the maximum when LUI changed maximally over time. In addition to decreasing overall LUI, we suggest varying LUI across years as a complementary strategy to promote biodiversity conservation.

Fungi are important members of soil microbial communities with a crucial role in biogeochemical processes. Although soil fungi are known to be highly diverse, little is known about factors influencing variations in their diversity and community structure among forests dominated by the same tree species but spread over different regions and under different managements. We analyzed the soil fungal diversity and community composition of managed and unmanaged European beech dominated forests located in three German regions, the Schwa "bische Alb in Southwestern, the Hainich-Dun in Central and the Schorfheide Chorin in the Northeastern Germany, using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA pyrotag sequencing. Multiple sequence quality filtering followed by sequence data normalization revealed 1655 fungal operational taxonomic units. Further analysis based on 722 abundant fungal OTUs revealed the phylum Basidiomycota to be dominant (54%) and its community to comprise 71.4% of ectomycorrhizal taxa. Fungal community structure differed significantly (p