Fungal successions in a long-term boreal forest chronosequence
In the face of the ongoing and predicted climate warming at high latitudes, it is crucial to improve our understanding of the factors regulating carbon storage in boreal forests.
Fungi are the main decomposer organisms in most boreal forest soils. This project characterizes shifts in fungal communities and related changes in carbon and nutrient cycling in a 50 to 5000 year succession of boreal forests situated on islands in the two adjacent lakes Uddjaure and Hornavan in the Northern boreal zone of Sweden.
The aim of the study is to understand whether shifts in biomass, community composition or functioning of soil fungi could explain the retarded decomposition rate and increasing accumulation of humus in old growth boreal forests. Particularly we are looking into potential shifts in the mycorrhizal fungal community or functioning as a main driver of humus sequestration.
We use 454-pyrosequencing to obtain high-resolution characterization of the fungal communities in soil profiles and qPCR, ergosterol and PLFAs to estimate fungal and bacterial biomass. Natural abundance of stable C and N isotopes in the organic soil profiles is used to assess nutrient and carbon cycling, and 14C dating of the profiles facilitate modeling of organic carbon turnover in the profiles.
Funding: 7th European Framework programme, Dept Forest Mycology and Pathology
Contact: Karina.Clemmensen@mykopat.slu.se, Phone: +45 (0)18-67 15 79
