TY - JOUR
T1 - Exclusion of invertebrates influences saprotrophic fungal community and wood decay rate in an experimental field study
AU - Jacobsen, Rannveig M.
AU - Sverdrup-Thygeson, Anne
AU - Kauserud, Håvard
AU - Mundra, Sunil
AU - Birkemoe, Tone
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Adrian K. Rasmussen, Terje Olav Ryd, Saskia Bergmann, Sebastian Knutsen, Charlotte Norseng and Østbytunet skole for help with the field work; Saskia Bergmann, Anders Bjørnsgaard Aas and Luis Neves Morgado for help with the lab work; the owners of Losby and Løvenskiold-Vækerø forest holdings for use of their forests and roads; and Nansenfondet for financial support. Olav Albert Høibø gave valuable advice on wood density measurements. We thank Douglas Sheil and Gro Amdam for critical comments on an earlier draft of the article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors. Functional Ecology © 2018 British Ecological Society
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - Decomposer communities perform an essential ecosystem function by recycling nutrients. However, the effect of higher trophic levels on microbial decomposer communities and rate of decomposition is poorly understood. We therefore conducted an exclusion experiment to test the effect of invertebrates on fungal decomposer communities in dead wood, repeated at 30 sites in two landscapes, and measured wood density to assess effect on decay rate. Invertebrates were excluded from recently cut logs by cages with a 1-mm-mesh net, and fungal communities in caged logs were compared to logs accessible to invertebrates by DNA metabarcoding analyses. Accessible logs included control logs, cage control logs and positive control logs. We found that exclusion of invertebrates had a significant effect on fungal community composition. For example, the wood decay fungi Trametes versicolor and T. ochraceawere significantly more abundant in accessible logs than in caged logs. The strongest effect on fungal community composition, however, was attributed to differing baseline conditions in the individual trees. When accounting for these baseline differences, caged logs had significantly higher wood density than control logs after 2 years, indicating lower rates of wood decay in caged logs. Further studies, spanning several years, are required to fully understand the influence of invertebrates on fungi and wood decay. However, our results indicate that invertebrates influence both the composition of saprotrophic communities in dead wood and their decomposition function, which is vital to forest ecosystems. A plain language summary is available for this article.
AB - Decomposer communities perform an essential ecosystem function by recycling nutrients. However, the effect of higher trophic levels on microbial decomposer communities and rate of decomposition is poorly understood. We therefore conducted an exclusion experiment to test the effect of invertebrates on fungal decomposer communities in dead wood, repeated at 30 sites in two landscapes, and measured wood density to assess effect on decay rate. Invertebrates were excluded from recently cut logs by cages with a 1-mm-mesh net, and fungal communities in caged logs were compared to logs accessible to invertebrates by DNA metabarcoding analyses. Accessible logs included control logs, cage control logs and positive control logs. We found that exclusion of invertebrates had a significant effect on fungal community composition. For example, the wood decay fungi Trametes versicolor and T. ochraceawere significantly more abundant in accessible logs than in caged logs. The strongest effect on fungal community composition, however, was attributed to differing baseline conditions in the individual trees. When accounting for these baseline differences, caged logs had significantly higher wood density than control logs after 2 years, indicating lower rates of wood decay in caged logs. Further studies, spanning several years, are required to fully understand the influence of invertebrates on fungi and wood decay. However, our results indicate that invertebrates influence both the composition of saprotrophic communities in dead wood and their decomposition function, which is vital to forest ecosystems. A plain language summary is available for this article.
KW - DNA
KW - community assembly
KW - dead wood
KW - decomposition
KW - high-throughput sequencing
KW - insects
KW - saproxylic
KW - top-down
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U2 - 10.1111/1365-2435.13196
DO - 10.1111/1365-2435.13196
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052973294
SN - 0269-8463
VL - 32
SP - 2571
EP - 2582
JO - Functional Ecology
JF - Functional Ecology
IS - 11
ER -