Global diversity and ecological drivers of lichenised soil fungi

10 páginas.- 5 figuras.- 56 referencias.- Additional Supporting Information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article

Free Access http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.17433

Lichens play crucial roles in sustaining the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems; however, the diversity and ecological factors associated with lichenised soil fungi remain poorly understood.To address this knowledge gap, we used a global field survey including information on fungal sequences of topsoils from 235 terrestrial ecosystems.We identified 880 lichenised fungal phylotypes across nine biomes ranging from deserts to tropical forests. The diversity and proportion of lichenised soil fungi peaked in shrublands and dry grasslands. Aridity index, plant cover and soil pH were the most important factors associated with the distribution of lichenised soil fungi. Furthermore, we identified Endocarpon, Verrucaria and Rinodina as some of the most dominant lichenised genera across the globe, and they had similar environmental preferences to the lichenised fungal community. In addition, precipitation seasonality and mean diurnal temperature range were also important in predicting the proportion of these dominant genera. Using this information, we were able to create the first global maps of the richness and the proportion of dominant genera of lichenised fungi.This work provides new insight into the global distribution and ecological preferences of lichenised soil fungi, and supports their dominance in drylands across the globe.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877120). We also thank the Funda-mental Research Funds for the Central Universities (programmenos. 2662019PY010 and 2662019QD055), Natural Science Fund of Hubei Province (2019CFA094). MD-B is supported bya Ramon y Cajal grant from the Spanish Government (agreementno. RYC2018-025483-I). Microbial colonisation and distribution research in the BKS laboratory is supported by the Australian Research Council (DP 190103714)

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