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Fungal Communities and Functional Guilds Shift Along an Elevational Gradient in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

  • Fungal Microbiology
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Abstract

Nitrogen deposition alters forest ecosystems particularly in high elevation, montane habitats where nitrogen deposition is greatest and continues to increase. We collected soils across an elevational (788–1940 m) gradient, encompassing both abiotic (soil chemistry) and biotic (vegetation community) gradients, at eight locations in the southern Appalachian Mountains of southwestern North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. We measured soil chemistry (total N, C, extractable PO4, soil pH, cation exchange capacity [ECEC], percent base saturation [% BS]) and dissected soil fungal communities using ITS2 metabarcode Illumina MiSeq sequencing. Total soil N, C, PO4, % BS, and pH increased with elevation and plateaued at approximately 1400 m, whereas ECEC linearly increased and C/N decreased with elevation. Fungal communities differed among locations and were correlated with all chemical variables, except PO4, whereas OTU richness increased with total N. Several ecological guilds (i.e., ectomycorrhizae, saprotrophs, plant pathogens) differed in abundance among locations; specifically, saprotroph abundance, primarily attributable to genus Mortierella, was positively correlated with elevation. Ectomycorrhizae declined with total N and soil pH and increased with total C and PO4 where plant pathogens increased with total N and decreased with total C. Our results demonstrate significant turnover in taxonomic and functional fungal groups across elevational gradients which facilitate future predictions on forest ecosystem change in the southern Appalachians as nitrogen deposition rates increase and regional temperature and precipitation regimes shift.

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Acknowledgements

Appreciation is extended to Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC for the Grant-In-Aids financial support awarded to R. Baird. We thank Jason Love, Coweeta LTER Site Manager, for field assistance, Shawn Brown for laboratory and bioinformatics assistance, and Alina Akhunova at the Kansas State University Integrated Genomics Facility for assistance and preparation of ITS library sequencing. Additional laboratory facilities were provided by Mississippi State University. Soil sample collection and chemical analyses were supported by NSF grants DEB0218001 and DEB0823293 to the Coweeta LTER program at the University of Georgia and by USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory project funds.

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Author notes

  1. Allison M. Veach

    Present address: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA

  2. Allison M. Veach and Richard Baird contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

    Allison M. Veach & Ari Jumpponen

  2. Department of Forest Products, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, 39762, USA

    C. Elizabeth Stokes

  3. Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology, and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, 39762, USA

    C. Elizabeth Stokes & Richard Baird

  4. USDA, Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Center for Forest Watershed Research, Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, Otto, NC, 28763, USA

    Jennifer Knoepp

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Correspondence to Allison M. Veach.

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Veach, A.M., Stokes, C.E., Knoepp, J. et al. Fungal Communities and Functional Guilds Shift Along an Elevational Gradient in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Microb Ecol 76, 156–168 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1116-6

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