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Title: Links between plant and fungal diversity in habitat fragments of coastal shrubland

Abstract

Habitat fragmentation is widespread across ecosystems, detrimentally affecting biodiversity. Although most habitat fragmentation studies have been conducted on macroscopic organisms, microbial communities and fungal processes may also be threatened by fragmentation. This study investigated whether fragmentation, and the effects of fragmentation on plants, altered fungal diversity and function within a fragmented shrubland in southern California. Using fluorimetric techniques, we assayed enzymes from plant litter collected from fragments of varying sizes to investigate enzymatic responses to fragmentation. To isolate the effects of plant richness from those of fragment size on fungi, we deployed litter bags containing different levels of plant litter diversity into the largest fragment and incubated in the field for one year. Following field incubation, we determined litter mass loss and conducted molecular analyses of fungal communities. We found that leaf-litter enzyme activity declined in smaller habitat fragments with less diverse vegetation. Moreover, we detected greater litter mass loss in litter bags containing more diverse plant litter. Additionally, bags with greater plant litter diversity harbored greater numbers of fungal taxa. These findings suggest that both plant litter resources and fungal function may be affected by habitat fragmentation's constraints on plants, possibly because plant species differ chemically, and may thusmore » decompose at different rates. Diverse plant assemblages may produce a greater variety of litter resources and provide more ecological niche space, which may support greater numbers of fungal taxa. Thus, reduced plant diversity may constrain both fungal taxa richness and decomposition in fragmented coastal shrublands. Altogether, our findings provide evidence that even fungi may be affected by human-driven habitat fragmentation via direct effects of fragmentation on plants. Our findings underscore the importance of restoring diverse vegetation communities within larger coastal sage scrub fragments and suggest that this may be an effective way to improve the functional capacity of degraded sites.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1392736
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1429312
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0016410
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
PLoS ONE
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: PLoS ONE Journal Volume: 12 Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Biodiversity; Plants; Species diversity; Fungi; Coastal ecosystems; Decomposition; Ecosystem functionality; Habitats

Citation Formats

Maltz, Mia R., Treseder, Kathleen K., McGuire, Krista L., and Zang, ed., RunGuo. Links between plant and fungal diversity in habitat fragments of coastal shrubland. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184991.
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Maltz, Mia R., Treseder, Kathleen K., McGuire, Krista L., & Zang, ed., RunGuo. Links between plant and fungal diversity in habitat fragments of coastal shrubland. United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184991
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Maltz, Mia R., Treseder, Kathleen K., McGuire, Krista L., and Zang, ed., RunGuo. Tue . "Links between plant and fungal diversity in habitat fragments of coastal shrubland". United States. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184991.
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@article{osti_1392736,
title = {Links between plant and fungal diversity in habitat fragments of coastal shrubland},
author = {Maltz, Mia R. and Treseder, Kathleen K. and McGuire, Krista L. and Zang, ed., RunGuo},
abstractNote = {Habitat fragmentation is widespread across ecosystems, detrimentally affecting biodiversity. Although most habitat fragmentation studies have been conducted on macroscopic organisms, microbial communities and fungal processes may also be threatened by fragmentation. This study investigated whether fragmentation, and the effects of fragmentation on plants, altered fungal diversity and function within a fragmented shrubland in southern California. Using fluorimetric techniques, we assayed enzymes from plant litter collected from fragments of varying sizes to investigate enzymatic responses to fragmentation. To isolate the effects of plant richness from those of fragment size on fungi, we deployed litter bags containing different levels of plant litter diversity into the largest fragment and incubated in the field for one year. Following field incubation, we determined litter mass loss and conducted molecular analyses of fungal communities. We found that leaf-litter enzyme activity declined in smaller habitat fragments with less diverse vegetation. Moreover, we detected greater litter mass loss in litter bags containing more diverse plant litter. Additionally, bags with greater plant litter diversity harbored greater numbers of fungal taxa. These findings suggest that both plant litter resources and fungal function may be affected by habitat fragmentation's constraints on plants, possibly because plant species differ chemically, and may thus decompose at different rates. Diverse plant assemblages may produce a greater variety of litter resources and provide more ecological niche space, which may support greater numbers of fungal taxa. Thus, reduced plant diversity may constrain both fungal taxa richness and decomposition in fragmented coastal shrublands. Altogether, our findings provide evidence that even fungi may be affected by human-driven habitat fragmentation via direct effects of fragmentation on plants. Our findings underscore the importance of restoring diverse vegetation communities within larger coastal sage scrub fragments and suggest that this may be an effective way to improve the functional capacity of degraded sites.},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0184991},
journal = {PLoS ONE},
number = 9,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 19 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Tue Sep 19 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184991
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