Higher fungal diversity is correlated with lower CO2 emissions from dead wood in a natural forest

Yang, Chunyan, Schaefer, Douglas A., Liu, Weijie, Popescu, Viorel D., Yang, Chenxue, Wang, Xiaoyang, Wu, Chunying and Yu, Douglas W. (2016) Higher fungal diversity is correlated with lower CO2 emissions from dead wood in a natural forest. Scientific Reports, 6. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

Wood decomposition releases almost as much CO2 to the atmosphere as does fossil-fuel combustion, so the factors regulating wood decomposition can affect global carbon cycling. We used metabarcoding to estimate the fungal species diversities of naturally colonized decomposing wood in subtropical China and, for the first time, compared them to concurrent measures of CO2 emissions. Wood hosting more diverse fungal communities emitted less CO2, with Shannon diversity explaining 26 to 44% of emissions variation. Community analysis supports a ‘pure diversity’ effect of fungi on decomposition rates and thus suggests that interference competition is an underlying mechanism. Our findings extend the results of published experiments using low-diversity, laboratory-inoculated wood to a high-diversity, natural system. We hypothesize that high levels of saprotrophic fungal biodiversity could be providing globally important ecosystem services by maintaining dead-wood habitats and by slowing the atmospheric contribution of CO2 from the world’s stock of decomposing wood. However, large-scale surveys and controlled experimental tests in natural settings will be needed to test this hypothesis.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Related URLs:	http://www.nature.com/articles/srep31066
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:32
Last Modified:	11 May 2023 19:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60086
DOI:	10.1038/srep31066

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