Colonization gates and establishment of wood-decaying fungi in European Spruce

Colonization gates and establishment of wood-decaying fungi in European Spruce

Communities of biological species are formed by the environmental conditions, the local pool of species, and the intersections of the species niches and local environment. The early colonization events play a key role in establishment and development of pioneer communities in repeatedly available uncolonized habitats. Wood is a significant component of the aboveground forest biomass as well as a valuable habitat and food source for the forest species. Wood-decaying fungi are influenced by the regional species pool on one hand, and local processes on the other, but the balance between the two sets of factors is poorly understood, and especially the fundamental stages of resource colonization and community establishment remain unexplored.

The goal of the project is to develop the theory of latent colonization using the fungal decayers of living and recently dead wood of European spruce (Picea abies) as a model system. By studying the early colonization processes we aim to identify the temporal and spatial colonization gates that makes it possible for Basidiomycetes to survive, dominate, and form a fruit body at the later stages of wood decomposition. We expect to achieve in-depth understanding of the structure and early dynamics of fungal communities and to extend the methodological framework in community ecology of fungi by combining the research on fruit bodies with metagenomics.

The objectives of the projects are 1) to quantify the spatial and temporal aspects of early colonization events and their role in the forthcoming community structures, to characterise the temporal and spatial aspects of fungal colonization of living and standing dead trees, to examine the mycelial communities at various locations at the trunks of living and standing dead trees of various age classes, and therefore to identify the temporal and spatial colonization gates of individual species, and to reconstruct the early steps of community formation processes using wood-decaying Basidiomycete fungi in European spruce as a model system. 2) To explore the role of Coleoptera as vectors of wood-decaying fungi colonizing the living trees, and as vectors of the successor fungi following the pioneer decayers of spruce logs, to examine and quantify the spore coverage of the bark beetles and compare it with the background spore rain, and to examine the spores coverage of the potential vectoring species of beetles collected on the fruit bodies of the pioneer and successor fungi.