0000000001319725
AUTHOR
Veera Norros
Growth sites of polypores from quantitative expert evaluation: Late-stage decayers and saprotrophs fruit closer to ground
Abstract Life history traits are key to why species occur when and where they do and how their populations will respond to environmental changes. However, dispersal-related traits of fungi are generally poorly known. We studied how spore release height from the ground, an important determinant of airborne dispersal, is connected to other traits in polypores. We collected expert evaluations of fruit body growth sites for 140 species and found that experts generally provided consistent estimates of height above the ground. Height was correlated with other traits: species fruiting on living trees, earlier decay stages and deciduous hosts tend to fruit higher above the ground. While our data do…
High within- and between-trunk variation in the nematoceran (Diptera) community and its physical environment in decaying aspen trunks
Dead wood is a primary habitat for a large number of insects, including species from many nematoceran (Diptera) groups. The species living in dead wood must be adapted to the ephemeral and ever-changing nature of their substrate. There is a growing body of knowledge about the effects of dead wood quality and the surrounding landscape on the saproxylic beetle community, but we know very little about the other saproxylic insects. Moreover, we know only very little about the variation in the insect community between different parts of decaying wood pieces. Using emergence traps, we studied the saproxylic nematoceran communities occupying different parts of decaying fallen aspen trunks in a bor…
Give me a sample of air and I will tell which species are found from your region : Molecular identification of fungi from airborne spore samples
Fungi are a megadiverse group of organisms, they play major roles in ecosystem functioning and are important for human health, food production and nature conservation. Our knowledge on fungal diversity and fungal ecology is however still very limited, in part because surveying and identifying fungi is time demanding and requires expert knowledge. We present a method that allows anyone to generate a list of fungal species likely to occur in a region of interest, with minimal effort and without requiring taxonomical expertise. The method consists of using a cyclone sampler to acquire fungal spores directly from the air to an Eppendorf tube, and applying DNA barcoding with probabilistic specie…
Spore production monitoring reveals contrasting seasonal strategies and a trade‐off between spore size and number in wood‐inhabiting fungi
1. Traits related to reproduction and dispersal drive the assembly and dynamics of species communities and can explain and predict how species respond to habitat loss and fragmentation and to the changing climate. For fungi, such links remain poorly known. 2. We examine how spore production rate, a key demographic trait, is influenced by the interaction between environmental conditions and species traits. We monitored the spore production of 97 wood-inhabiting fungal species on 107 decaying logs for two years and analyzed the data with a hierarchical community model. 3. Our analysis demonstrates clear species differences in seasonal patterns, with spring and summer release dominating in per…
Data from: Give me a sample of air and I will tell which species are found from your region – molecular identification of fungi from airborne spore samples
Fungi are a megadiverse group of organisms, they play major roles in ecosystem functioning, and are important for human health, food production, and nature conservation. Our knowledge on fungal diversity and fungal ecology is however still very limited, in part because surveying and identifying fungi is time demanding and requires expert knowledge. We present a method that allows anyone to generate a list of fungal species likely to occur in a region of interest, with minimal effort and without requiring taxonomical expertise. The method consists of using a cyclone sampler to acquire fungal spores directly from the air to an Eppendorf tube, and applying DNA barcoding with probabilistic spec…