Surviving trees and deadwood moderate changes in soil fungal communities and associated functioning after natural forest disturbance and salvage logging

Soil fungi are important components of boreal forest ecosystems; for example, saprotrophic fungi regulate nutrient cycling, and mycorrhizal species facilitate nutrient uptake by plants. This study aimed to assess soil fungal communities in a reclaimed area and an adjacent natural mixedwood forest and to identify the distribution of taxa available for seedling colonization. Soil fungal microbiomes were assessed along three transects (from 10 m inside the interior of the undisturbed forest to 40 m inside the reclaimed area) and in the roots of small aspen within the natural forest. Using high-throughput deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing of internal transcribed spacer amplicons, a total of 2796 unique fungal taxa were detected across fine roots, forest floor, and mineral soils collected along the transects, whereas 166 taxa were detected in the aspen roots from the natural forest. Within the interior of the forest, ectomycorrhizal fungi were more common, whereas in the reclaimed areas, arbuscular mycorrhizae and saprophytes were more common. This survey showed that natural areas of adjacent undisturbed forest can act as a source of ectomycorrhizal fungi for dispersal into reclaimed areas. Notably, soil fungal taxa colonizing the root systems of small aspen included species that are specifically associated with soils from the undisturbed forest (primarily ectomycorrhizae) or the reclaimed clearing (saprotrophs and plant pathogens).

Download Full-text

Salvage logging cause short- and mid-term changes of successional trajectories following forest disturbance

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2344 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Simon Thorn

Keyword(s):

Functional Groups ◽

Forest Succession ◽

Forest Disturbance ◽

Natural Disturbances ◽

Community Recovery ◽

Salvage Logging ◽

Hill Numbers ◽

Taxonomic Groups ◽

Evolutionary Lineages ◽

Over Time

<p>Following natural forest disturbances, additional anthropogenic disturbance may alter community recovery and successional trajectories by affecting the occurrences of species, functional groups and evolutionary lineages. However, our understanding is limited of whether rare, common, or dominant species, functional groups, or evolutionary lineages are most strongly affected by an additional disturbance, such as salvage logging. Here, we used a generalized diversity concept based on Hill numbers to quantify the community differences of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, wood-inhabiting fungi, saproxylic beetles, and birds following disturbances and experimental salvage logging. Most species groups showed no significant changes in dissimilarities between logged and unlogged plots over the first years of succession, indicating that salvage logging did not contribute to an accelerated decrease of initial dissimilarities. These dissimilarities between communities of were mainly driven by rare species. Trends in species dissimilarities only partially match the trends in dissimilarities of functional groups and evolutionary lineages, with little significant changes in successional trajectories. This talk highlights that salvage logging following natural disturbances can alter successional trajectories in early stages of forest succession following natural disturbances and that those changes persist over time. However, community changes over time may differ remarkably in different taxonomic groups and are best detected based on taxonomic, rather than functional or phylogenetic dissimilarities.</p>

Download Full-text