Fungal community composition predicts forest carbon storage at a continental scale

Bibtex

@misc{99469668-d0ea-4903-8af2-eac03c32666c,
title = "Fungal community composition predicts forest carbon storage at a continental scale",
abstract = "Forest soils harbor hyper-diverse microbial communities which fundamentally regulate carbon and nutrient cycling across the globe. Directly testing hypotheses on how microbiome diversity is linked to forest carbon storage has been difficult, due to a lack of paired data on microbiome diversity and in situ observations of forest carbon accumulation and storage. Here, we investigated the relationship between soil microbiomes and forest carbon across 238 forest inventory plots spanning 15 European countries. We show that the composition and diversity of fungal, but not bacterial, species is tightly coupled to both forest biotic conditions and a seven-fold variation in tree growth rates and biomass carbon stocks when controlling for the effects of dominant tree type, climate, and other environmental factors. This linkage is particularly strong for symbiotic endophytic and ectomycorrhizal fungi known to directly facilitate tree growth. Since tree growth rates in this system are closely and positively correlated with belowground soil carbon stocks, we conclude that fungal composition is a strong predictor of overall forest carbon storage across the European continent.",
author = "Mark A. Anthony and Leho Tedersoo and Bruno De Vos and Luc Croisé and Henning Meesenburg and Markus Wagner and Henning Andreae and Frank Jacob and Paweł Lech and Anna Kowalska and Martin Greve and Genoveva Popova and Beat Frey and Arthur Gessler and Marcus Schaub and Marco Ferretti and Peter Waldner and Vicent Calatayud and Roberto Canullo and Giancarlo Papitto and Aleksander Marinšek and Morten Ingerslev and Lars Vesterdal and Pasi Rautio and Helge Meissner and Volkmar Timmermann and Mike Dettwiler and Nadine Eickenscheidt and Andreas Schmitz and Nina Van Tiel and Thomas W. Crowther and Colin Averill",
year = "2024",
month = mar,
day = "16",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46792-w",
language = "English",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
address = "Belgium,
type = "Other"
}

Authors

Mark A. Anthony
Leho Tedersoo
Bruno De Vos
Luc Croisé
Henning Meesenburg
Markus Wagner
Henning Andreae
Frank Jacob
Paweł Lech
Anna Kowalska
Martin Greve
Genoveva Popova
Beat Frey
Arthur Gessler
Marcus Schaub
Marco Ferretti
Peter Waldner
Vicent Calatayud
Roberto Canullo
Giancarlo Papitto
Aleksander Marinšek
Morten Ingerslev
Lars Vesterdal
Pasi Rautio
Helge Meissner
Volkmar Timmermann
Mike Dettwiler
Nadine Eickenscheidt
Andreas Schmitz
Nina Van Tiel
Thomas W. Crowther
Colin Averill