0000000001324846
AUTHOR
Thomas Læssøe
showing 5 related works from this author
Fungal spore diversity reflects substrate-specific deposition challenges
2018
AbstractSexual spores are important for the dispersal and population dynamics of fungi. They show remarkable morphological diversity, but the underlying forces driving spore evolution are poorly known. We investigated whether trophic status and substrate associations are associated with morphology in 787 macrofungal genera. We show that both spore size and ornamentation are associated with trophic specialization, so that large and ornamented spores are more probable in ectomycorrhizal than in saprotrophic genera. This suggests that spore ornamentation facilitates attachment to arthropod vectors, which ectomycorrhizal species may need to reach lower soil layers. Elongated spore shapes are mo…
Morphological traits predict host-tree specialization in wood-inhabiting fungal communities
2020
Tree species is one of the most important determinants of wood-inhabiting fungal community composition, yet its relationship with fungal reproductive and dispersal traits remains poorly understood. We studied fungal communities (total of 657 species) inhabiting broadleaved and coniferous dead wood (total of 192 logs) in 12 semi-natural boreal forests. We utilized a trait-based hierarchical joint species distribution model to examine how the relationship between dead wood quality and species occurrence correlates with reproductive and dispersal morphological traits. Broadleaved trees had higher species richness than conifers, due to discomycetoids and pyrenomycetoids specializing in them. Re…
Wood-inhabiting fungal responses to forest naturalness vary among morpho-groups
2021
The general negative impact of forestry on wood-inhabiting fungal diversity is well recognized, yet the effect of forest naturalness is poorly disentangled among different fungal groups inhabiting dead wood of different tree species. We studied the relationship between forest naturalness, log characteristics and diversity of different fungal morpho-groups inhabiting large decaying logs of similar quality in spruce dominated boreal forests. We sampled all non-lichenized fruitbodies from birch, spruce, pine and aspen in 12 semi-natural forest sites of varying level of naturalness. The overall fungal community composition was mostly determined by host tree species. However, when assessing the …
Effect of forest naturalness on assemblages of different morphological groups of wood-inhabiting fungi
2018
Forestry is known to have clear negative effects on the diversity of fungal species, especially on those that are producing large, long living fruitbodies. However, the effect of forestry has not been comprehensively studied among different fungal groups and host tree species in boreal forests. Also most often a study plot based approach has been utilized in which the substrate quality is always very different between the managed and unmanaged forests. In the present study, we studied the effect of forestry on fungal assemblages inhabiting large logs of similar quality among the different management classes. We included all non-lichenized fungal species producing sexual fruitbodies on 42 de…
Citizens may boost primary biodiversity knowledge - insights from the Danish fungal Atlas
2018
The Danish Fungal Atlas ran from 2009-13 and contributed with almost 250.000 records of fruit-body forming Basidiomycota (macrofungi) mainly submitted by volunteer citizen scientists. The data has been utilized in several research and conservation projects, but here we explore how the project contributed to the primary understanding of fungal biodiversity in Denmark. During the project, 197 species were recorded as new to Denmark, extending the national species list considerably. At least 15 of these appeared to be new to science. An even higher number of species previously recorded in Denmark, were however not reported in the project period, indicating a potential significant species turno…