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Consistent trade-offs in fungal trait expression across broad spatial scales

Nature Microbiology volume 4, pages 846–853 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Fungi are the primary agents of terrestrial decomposition, yet our understanding of fungal biogeography lags far behind that of plants, animals and bacteria. Here, we use a trait-based approach to quantify the niches of 23 species of basidiomycete wood decay fungi from across North America, and explore the linkages among functional trait expression, climate and phylogeny. Our analysis reveals a fundamental trade-off between abiotic stress tolerance and competitive ability, whereby fungi with wide thermal and moisture niches exhibit lower displacement ability. The magnitude of this dominance-tolerance trade-off is partially related to the environmental conditions under which the fungi were collected, with thermal niche traits exhibiting the strongest climate relationships. Nevertheless, moisture and thermal dominance-tolerance patterns exhibited contrasting phylogenetic signals, suggesting that these trends are influenced by a combination of niche sorting along taxonomic lines in tandem with acclimation and adaptation at the level of the individual. Collectively, our work reveals key insight into the life history strategies of saprotrophic fungi, demonstrating consistent trait trade-offs across broad spatial scales.

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Fig. 1: Fungal isolates and their niches.
Fig. 2: Correlations between niche traits, physiological growth traits and performance traits.
Fig. 3: PCA analysis provides evidence of a dominance-tolerance trade-off in trait space.
Fig. 4: Visualizing the dominance-tolerance trade-off across broad spatial scales.

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Code availability

All code needed to reproduce these results can be obtained from https://github.com/dsmaynard/fungal_biogeography.

Data availability

Data are archived in a dedicated GitHub repository: https://github.com/dsmaynard/fungal_biogeography. The ITS and LSU sequences were previously deposited in GenBank under accession numbers KX065932–KX065968 and KX065969–KX066002.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Thomas, A. Neupane and E. Karlsen-Ayala for laboratory assistance, and L. Boddy for discussions throughout this study. This work was supported by grants to T.W.C. from DOB Ecology, Plant-for-the-Planet, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development; and by grants to M.A.B. and D.S.M. from the US National Science Foundation (grant nos. DEB-1457614 and DEB-1601036).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Daniel S. Maynard

  2. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Daniel S. Maynard & Mark A. Bradford

  3. Environmental Studies and Sciences Program, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA

    Kristofer R. Covey

  4. US Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Center for Forest Mycology Research, Madison, WI, USA

    Daniel Lindner & Jessie Glaeser

  5. Department of Computer Science, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN, USA

    Douglas A. Talbert & Paul Joshua Tinker

  6. Department of Biology, Toxicology and Disease Group, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA

    Donald M. Walker

  7. Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Thomas W. Crowther

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Contributions

The study was conceived by T.W.C. The experimental work was designed by D.S.M. and T.W.C. and conducted by T.W.C., D.S.M., K.R.C., D.L. and J.G. The statistical analyses were performed by D.S.M., T.W.C., D.A.T., P.J.T. and D.M.W. The manuscript was written by D.S.M., T.W.C. and M.A.B., with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Daniel S. Maynard.

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Maynard, D.S., Bradford, M.A., Covey, K.R. et al. Consistent trade-offs in fungal trait expression across broad spatial scales. Nat Microbiol 4, 846–853 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0361-5

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