TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mayer, Mathias
A1  - Rosinger, Christoph
A1  - Gorfer, Markus
A1  - Berger, Harald
A1  - Deltedesco, Evi
A1  - Bässler, Claus
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Seifert, Linda
A1  - Rewald, Boris
A1  - Godbold, Douglas Lawrence
T1  - Surviving trees and deadwood moderate changes in soil fungal communities and associated functioning after natural forest disturbance and salvage logging
T2  - Soil biology & biochemistry
N2  - Temperate forests are increasingly subject to natural disturbance by stand replacing windthrows or bark-beetle attacks. Forests are commonly salvage logged after disturbance, whereby substantial parts of biological legacies, such as surviving trees and deadwood, are removed. Despite increasing concerns about the ecological consequences of salvage logging operations, our knowledge on the effects on the soil microbiome and associated functioning remains limited.

Here, we studied soil fungal communities, decomposition processes, and soil organic matter dynamics in 21 intact or disturbed, temperate Norway spruce stands about one decade after they were damaged by windthrow or bark-beetle attacks. Disturbed stands comprised different post-disturbance management, i.e. deadwood retention and salvage logged plots. We used high-throughput sequencing and ergosterol measurements to explore fungal communities and biomass, and enzyme assays to study decomposition processes.

Disturbance shifted soil fungal communities from ectomycorrhizal to saprotrophic dominated assemblages. Fungal biomass declined with decreasing tree abundance after disturbance. Activities of organic matter degrading enzymes declined by ca. 30–80% after disturbance. The relative abundance of ectomycorrhizal fungi was positively related to enzymatic activities. Tree biomass parameters and amounts of deadwood retained were positively related to fungal biomass, certain ectomycorrhizal taxa, and relative ectomycorrhizal fungal abundance among disturbed stands, which, in turn, was associated with higher enzymatic activities.

Our findings demonstrate a significant response of soil fungal communities to natural forest disturbance and salvage logging, with consequences for decomposition and soil organic matter dynamics. We conclude that the retention of surviving trees and deadwood as biological legacies attenuated associated changes to a significant extent, highlighting their importance for the preservation of ectomycorrhizal fungi and the maintenance of decomposition processes after disturbance.
KW  - Bark beetle
KW  - Ectomycorrhizal fungi
KW  - Forest disturbance
KW  - Enzyme activity
KW  - Salvage logging
KW  - Soil carbon and nitrogen cycle
KW  - Soil fungi
KW  - Soil organic matter decomposition
KW  - Windthrow
Y1  - 2022
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/78641
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-786418
SN  - 1879-3428
N1  - Funding: C-Alp II’
N1  - Data is deposited at the National Park Bavarian Forest and is available on request via https://www.nationalpark-bayerischer-wald.bayern.de/english/research. Sequencing and associated data have been deposited at NCBI BioProject PRJNA675197, BioSamples SAMN17015429-SAMN17015502 and GenBank accession numbers MW237871-MW238183.
N1  - Funding: Melitta/Toppits®
N1  - Funding: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports ; LO1415
N1  - Funding: ‘Talente’ ; 867601
N1  - Funding: ClimTree
VL  - 166
IS  - art. 108558
SP  - 1
EP  - 13
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam [u.a.]
ER  -