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Plantations of Norway spruce have been established well beyond its natural range in many parts of the world, potentially impacting native microbial ecosystems and the processes they mediate. In this study, we investigate how the establishment of spruce plantations in a landscape dominated by native birch forests in western Norway impacts soil properties and belowground fungal communities. Soil cores were collected from neighboring stands of planted spruce and native birch forests. We used DNA metabarcoding of the rDNA internal transcribed spacer 2 region and ergosterol measurements to survey the fungal community composition and its biomass, respectively. In the two investigated soil layers (litter and humus), fungal community composition, diversity and biomass were strongly affected by the tree species shift. Native birch stands hosted markedly richer fungal communities, including numerous fungi not present in planted spruce stands. In contrast, the spruce stands included higher relative abundance of ectomycorrhizal fungi as well as higher fungal biomass. Hence, establishing plantations of Norway spruce in native birch forests leads to significant losses in diversity, but increase in biomass of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which could potentially impact carbon sequestration processes and ecosystem functioning., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.)

Soil depth represents a strong physiochemical gradient that greatly affects soil-dwelling microorganisms. Fungal communities are typically structured by soil depth, but how other microorganisms are structured is less known. Here, we tested whether depth-dependent variation in soil chemistry affects the distribution and co-occurrence patterns of soil microbial communities. This was investigated by DNA metabarcoding in conjunction with network analyses of bacteria, fungi, as well as other micro-eukaryotes, sampled in four different soil depths in Norwegian birch forests. Strong compositional turnover in microbial assemblages with soil depth was detected for all organismal groups. Significantly greater microbial diversity and fungal biomass appeared in the nutrient-rich organic layer, with sharp decrease towards the less nutrient-rich mineral zones. The proportions of copiotrophic bacteria, Arthropoda and Apicomplexa were markedly higher in the organic layer, while patterns were opposite for oligotrophic bacteria, Cercozoa, Ascomycota and ectomycorrhizal fungi. Network analyses indicated more intensive inter-kingdom co-occurrence patterns in the upper mineral layer (0-5 cm) compared to the above organic and the lower mineral soil, signifying substantial influence of soil depth on biotic interactions. This study supports the view that different microbial groups are adapted to different forest soil strata, with varying level of interactions along the depth gradient., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.)

Climate change causes Arctic glaciers to retreat faster, exposing new areas for colonization. Several pioneer plants likely to colonize recent deglaciated, nutrient-poor areas depend on fungal partners for successful establishment. Little is known about general patterns or characteristics of facilitating fungal pioneers and how they vary with regional climate in the Arctic. The High Arctic Archipelago Svalbard represents an excellent study system to address these questions, as glaciers cover ∼60% of the land surface and recent estimations suggest at least 7% reduction of glacier area since 1960s. Roots of two ectomycorrhizal (ECM) plants (Salix polaris and Bistorta vivipara) were sampled in eight glacier forelands. Associated ECM fungi were assessed using DNA metabarcoding. About 25% of the diversity was unknown at family level, indicating presence of undescribed species. Seven genera dominated based on richness and abundance, but their relative importance varied with local factors. The genus Geopora showed surprisingly high richness and abundance, particularly in dry, nutrient-poor forelands. Such forelands will diminish along with increasing temperature and precipitation, and faster succession. Our results support a taxonomical shift in pioneer ECM diversity with climate change, and we are likely to lose unknown fungal diversity, without knowing their identity or ecological importance., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.)

The number of plant species regarded as non-mycorrhizal increases at higher latitudes, and several plant species in the High-Arctic Archipelago Svalbard have been reported as non-mycorrhizal. We used the rRNA ITS2 and 18S gene markers to survey which fungi, as well as other micro-eukaryotes, were associated with roots of 31 arctic plant species not usually regarded as mycorrhizal in Svalbard. We assessed to what degree the root-associated fungi showed any host preference and whether the phylogeny of the plant hosts may mirror the composition of root-associated fungi. Fungal communities were largely structured according to host plant identity and to a less extent by environmental factors. We observed a positive relationship between the phylogenetic distance of host plants and the distance of fungal community composition between samples, indicating that the evolutionary history of the host plants plays a major role for which fungi colonize the plant roots. In contrast to the ITS2 marker, the 18S rRNA gene marker showed that chytrid fungi were prevalently associated with plant roots, together with a wide spectrum of amoeba-like protists and nematodes. Our study confirms that arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are present also in arctic environments in low abundance., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.)

The belowground environment is heterogeneous and complex at fine spatial scales. Physical structures, biotic components and abiotic conditions create a patchwork mosaic of potential niches for microbes. Questions remain about mechanisms and patterns of community assembly belowground, including: Do fungal and bacterial communities assemble differently? How do microbes reach the roots of host plants? Within a 4 m2 plot in alpine vegetation, high throughput sequencing of the 16S (bacteria) and ITS1 (fungal) ribosomal RNA genes was used to characterise microbial community composition in roots and adjacent soil of a viviparous host plant (Bistorta vivipara). At fine spatial scales, beta-diversity patterns in belowground bacterial and fungal communities were consistent, although compositional change was greater in bacteria than fungi. Spatial structure and distance-decay relationships were also similar for bacteria and fungi, with significant spatial structure detected at <50 cm among root- but not soil-associated microbes. Recruitment of root microbes from the soil community appeared limited at this sampling and sequencing depth. Possible explanations for this include recruitment from low-abundance populations of soil microbes, active recruitment from neighbouring plants and/or vertical transmission of symbionts to new clones, suggesting varied methods of microbial community assembly for viviparous plants. Our results suggest that even at relatively small spatial scales, deterministic processes play a significant role in belowground microbial community structure and assembly., (© FEMS 2019.)

Beech forests reaches its native distribution limit in SE Norway, but is expected to expand substantially northwards due to climate warming. This may potentially result in a fundamental transformation of contemporary Northern European forests, with tentative effects on the associated belowground fungi. Fungal communities mediate vital ecosystem processes such as ecosystem productivity and carbon sequestration in boreal forests. To investigate how soil fungi is affected by the vegetation transition from spruce to beech forest, we sampled litter, humus and mineral soil in a forest landscape dominated by beech, spruce or a mixture of these. The fungal communities in the soil samples were analyzed by DNA metabarcoding of the rDNA ITS2 region. Although soil layers were the most important structuring gradient, we found clear differences in fungal species composition between spruce and beech plots. The differences in fungal community composition were most evident in the litter and least in the mineral soil. Decomposers, most notably Mycena, dominated the litter layer while various mycorrhizal fungi dominated the humus and mineral layers. Some ectomycorrhizal taxa, such as Cenoccocum and Russula, were more abundant in spruce forests. Differences in fungal community composition between forest types can potentially have large impacts on carbon sequestration rates.

Despite their obvious importance, our knowledge about the eukaryotic microbial diversity of inland waters is still limited and poorly documented. We applied 18S rDNA amplicon sequencing to provide a comprehensive analysis of eukaryotic diversity in 74 low-productivity lakes along a 750 km longitudinal transect (5.40-18.52°E) across southern Scandinavia. We detected a wide diversity of pelagic microbial eukaryotes, classified into 1882 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The highest OTU richness was found in traditional phytoplankton groups like Dinoflagellata, Chrysophyceae, Chlorophyta and Cryptophyta. A total of 53.6% OTUs were primarily autotrophic, while 19.4% of the heterotrophic OTUs belonged to putative parasitic taxa. Except for a longitudinal trend in the relative influence of mixotrophs, there were no significant associations between major functional groups (autotrophs, heterotrophs and parasites) and spatial and environmental variables. Community dissimilarity increased significantly with increasing geographical distance between lakes. In accordance with earlier, microscopy-based surveys in this region, we demonstrate distinct gradients in protistan diversity and community composition, which are better explained by spatial structure than local environment. The strong association between longitude and protistan diversity is probably better explained by differences in regional species pools due to differences in landscape productivity than by dispersal limitation or climatic constraints., (© FEMS 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Recent studies have revealed an unexpectedly high, cryptic diversity of fungi associated with boreal forest bryophytes. Forestry practices heavily influence the boreal forest and fundamentally transform the landscape. However, little is known about how bryophyte-associated fungal communities are affected by these large-scale habitat transformations. This study assesses to what degree bryophyte-associated fungal communities are structured across the forest successional stages created by current forestry practices. Shoots of Hylocomium splendens were collected in Picea abies dominated forests of different ages, and their associated fungal communities were surveyed by pyrosequencing of ITS2 amplicons. Although community richness, diversity and evenness were relatively stable across the forest types and all were consistently dominated by ascomycete taxa, there was a marked shift in fungal community composition between young and old forests. Numerous fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) showed distinct affinities for different forest ages. Spatial structure was also detected among the sites, suggesting that environmental gradients resulting from the topography of the study area and dispersal limitations may also significantly affect bryophyte-associated fungal community structure. This study confirms that Hylocomium splendens hosts an immense diversity of fungi and demonstrates that this community is structured in part by forest age, and as such is highly influenced by modern forestry practices., (© 2014 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Different mating systems have evolved in the fungal kingdom, including a tetrapolar multiallelic mating system in many basidiomycetes. In tetrapolar species, the presence of different alleles at two mating loci (MAT A and MAT B) is necessary for mating to occur. The tetrapolar fungus Serpula lacrymans causes wood-decay in buildings in temperate regions worldwide and is present in Europe with a genetically homogeneous founder population. Using genome sequence data, we annotated the two mating type loci for S. lacrymans and found the expected synteny with other basidiomycetes, except for a retrotransposon being present in one locus (MAT A). We developed markers linked to the MAT A and MAT B regions and used these to investigate the mating type diversity in the European population. Moreover, we found a good match between the genetic markers and functional mating types as revealed by segregation and mating studies. A low diversity of mating types is present in the European S. lacrymans population caused by the founder event where a limited number of genotypes were introduced. This finding contrasts the situation in natural fungal populations where a high diversity of mating types is normally present. Although S. lacrymans has a large and viable population in Europe, we argue that the low mating type diversity restrains the dispersal and establishment of the fungus.