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Interactions among fungi and insects involve hundreds of thousands of species. While insect communities on plants have formed some of the classic model systems in ecology, fungus-based communities and the forces structuring them remain poorly studied by comparison. We characterize the arthropod communities associated with fruiting bodies of eight mycorrhizal basidiomycete fungus species from three different orders along a 1200-km latitudinal gradient in northern Europe. We hypothesized that, matching the pattern seen for most insect taxa on plants, we would observe a general decrease in fungal-associated species with latitude. Against this backdrop, we expected local communities to be structured by host identity and phylogeny, with more closely related fungal species sharing more similar communities of associated organisms. As a more unique dimension added by the ephemeral nature of fungal fruiting bodies, we expected further imprints generated by successional change, with younger fruiting bodies harboring communities different from older ones. Using DNA metabarcoding to identify arthropod communities from fungal fruiting bodies, we found that latitude left a clear imprint on fungus-associated arthropod community composition, with host phylogeny and decay stage of fruiting bodies leaving lesser but still-detectable effects. The main latitudinal imprint was on a high arthropod species turnover, with no detectable pattern in overall species richness. Overall, these findings paint a new picture of the drivers of fungus-associated arthropod communities, suggesting that latitude will not affect how many arthropod species inhabit a fruiting body but, rather, what species will occur in it and at what relative abundances (as measured by sequence read counts). These patterns upset simplistic predictions regarding latitudinal gradients in species richness and in the strength of biotic interactions.

Forestry-related land use can cause increasing instream sedimentation, burying and eradicating stream bryophytes, with severe ecological consequences. However, there is limited understanding of the relative roles and overall importance of the two frequently co-occurring stressors, increased fine sediments and loss of bryophytes, to stream biodiversity and ecosystem functions. By using random forest modeling and partial dependence functions, we studied the relative importance of stream bryophytes and fine sediments to multiple biological endpoints (leaf-decaying fungi, diatom, bryophyte, and benthic macroinvertebrate communities; leaf decomposition) using field survey data from headwater streams. Stream bryophyte abundance and richness were negatively related to fine sediment cover, highlighting the detrimental effect of sedimentation on bryophytes. However, bryophyte abundance was consistently more important a determinant of variation in community composition than was fine sediment cover. Leaf decomposition was influenced by shredder abundance, water temperature and, to a lesser degree, stream size. Our results suggest that the loss of stream bryophytes due to increasing sedimentation, rather than fine sediments per se, seems to be the key factor affecting multiple biological responses. Enhancing the re-establishment of bryophyte stands could partly compensate for the negative impacts of sedimentation on bryophytes and, consequently, on several other components of boreal stream ecosystems.

Ashed tree samples from sound and decayed Norway spruce ( (L.) H. Karst.) were studied by means of fast neutron activation analysis, and for comparison, also by X-ray fluorescence analysis. In fast neutron activation analysis, the following elements were detected: (Na), Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Mn, Rb, Sr and Ba, and according to the results of the X-ray fluorescence method the elements present in the wood samples were: K, Ca, Mn, Rb, Sr and Ba. A general diminishing was revealed by both methods in most elemental concentrations studied, with exception of K and Rb, when going from a sound tree to a decayed one. The use of the ratio of the amounts of potassium to calcium as an indication of the degree of decay is therefore proposed.Picea abies