@article{ae01911a60bd400fbae7509ef2e82dad,
title = "Wildfire severity reduces richness and alters composition of soil fungal communities in boreal forests of western Canada",
abstract = "Wildfire is the dominant disturbance in boreal forests and fire activity is increasing in these regions. Soil fungal communities are important for plant growth and nutrient cycling postfire but there is little understanding of how fires impact fungal communities across landscapes, fire severity gradients, and stand types in boreal forests. Understanding relationships between fungal community composition, particularly mycorrhizas, and understory plant composition is therefore important in predicting how future fire regimes may affect vegetation. We used an extreme wildfire event in boreal forests of Canada's Northwest Territories to test drivers of fungal communities and assess relationships with plant communities. We sampled soils from 39 plots 1 year after fire and 8 unburned plots. High-throughput sequencing (MiSeq, ITS) revealed 2,034 fungal operational taxonomic units. We found soil pH and fire severity (proportion soil organic layer combusted), and interactions between these drivers were important for fungal community structure (composition, richness, diversity, functional groups). Where fire severity was low, samples with low pH had higher total fungal, mycorrhizal, and saprotroph richness compared to where severity was high. Increased fire severity caused declines in richness of total fungi, mycorrhizas, and saprotrophs, and declines in diversity of total fungi and mycorrhizas. The importance of stand age (a surrogate for fire return interval) for fungal composition suggests we could detect long-term successional patterns even after fire. Mycorrhizal and plant community composition, richness, and diversity were weakly but significantly correlated. These weak relationships and the distribution of fungi across plots suggest that the underlying driver of fungal community structure is pH, which is modified by fire severity. This study shows the importance of edaphic factors in determining fungal community structure at large scales, but suggests these patterns are mediated by interactions between fire and forest stand composition.",
keywords = "disturbance, functional groups, global change, mycorrhizas, saprotrophs, Taiga Plains, understory",
author = "Day, {Nicola J.} and Dunfield, {Kari E.} and Johnstone, {Jill F.} and Mack, {Michelle C.} and Turetsky, {Merritt R.} and Walker, {Xanthe J.} and White, {Alison L.} and Baltzer, {Jennifer L.}",
note = "Funding Information: Northern Scientific Training Program; National Science Foundation DEB, Grant/ Award Number: 1542150; Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada; Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Environment and Natural Resources Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program; NSERC Discovery Funding Information: This article is part of Project 170 of the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) Department of Environment and Natural Resources Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program (awarded to J.L.B.). Additional funding for this research was provided by a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Postdoctoral Fellowship to N.J.D., NSERC (Changing Cold Regions Network), Northern Scientific Training Program, a National Science Foundation DEB RAPID to M.C.M. (grant #1542150), and NSERC Discovery to M.R.T. We thank the GNWT Aurora Research Institute (Research License 15879), the Ka'a'gee Tu First Nation, the T{\l}ıB?chǫ Government, and the Wek'{\'e}ezhD?i Renewable Resources Board for their support of this research. The Wilfrid Laurier University‐GNWT Partnership was instrumental in providing logistical support. We thank the Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics – Montr{\'e}al Node for running the MiSeq and bioinformatics, particularly P. Lepage, F. Lefebvre, E. Gonzalez, and P. Marquiz. We thank S. Cumming for contributions to sampling design, A. Sniderhan for making the map, J. Padull{\'e}s Cubino for R code advice, and K. Reid and many students and technicians Funding Information: This article is part of Project 170 of the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) Department of Environment and Natural Resources Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program (awarded to J.L.B.). Additional funding for this research was provided by a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Postdoctoral Fellowship to N.J.D., NSERC (Changing Cold Regions Network), Northern Scientific Training Program, a National Science Foundation DEB RAPID to M.C.M. (grant #1542150), and NSERC Discovery to M.R.T. We thank the GNWT Aurora Research Institute (Research License 15879), the Ka'a'gee Tu First Nation, the T???ch? Government, and the Wek'?ezh?i Renewable Resources Board for their support of this research. The Wilfrid Laurier University-GNWT Partnership was instrumental in providing logistical support. We thank the Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics ? Montr?al Node for running the MiSeq and bioinformatics, particularly P. Lepage, F. Lefebvre, E. Gonzalez, and P. Marquiz. We thank S. Cumming for contributions to sampling design, A. Sniderhan for making the map, J. Padull?s Cubino for R code advice, and K. Reid and many students and technicians for field and lab assistance. We thank R. Hewitt for providing helpful comments on a manuscript draft and five anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly improved the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd",
year = "2019",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1111/gcb.14641",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "25",
pages = "2310--2324",
journal = "Global change biology",
issn = "1354-1013",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "7",
}