Litter-inhabiting fungi show high level of specialization towards biopolymers composing plant and fungal biomass
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Litter-inhabiting fungi show high level of specialization towards biopolymers composing plant and fungal biomass Camelia Algora Gallardo 1 & Petr Baldrian 1 & Rubén López-Mondéjar 1 Received: 11 May 2020 / Revised: 27 August 2020 / Accepted: 4 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Fungi are recognized as efficient decomposers of biopolymers contained in soil or litter, but not all saprotrophic taxa are equally efficient in accessing various C sources. While many fungi may be considered generalists that are able to utilize complex biomass of plant, bacterial, and fungal origin, it is less clear which of the individual biopolymers that compose these substrates they utilize. Here we analysed fungal communities in forest topsoil enriched in bags with polymers composing plant (cellulose, xylan, glucomannan, pectin, lignin) and fungal (chitin, β-1,3-glucan, and β-1,3-1,6-glucan) biomass along with fungal abundance and the activity of enzymes. There was a high degree of specialization among saprotrophs, each biopolymer being preferred by distinct taxa. White-rot fungi and general saprotrophs were most common on cellulose and xylan, while pectin and lignin-associated communities were dominated by moulds, and animal pathogens were found almost exclusively on chitin. Although several enzymes were produced on all biopolymers, the composition of enzyme pools was significantly different among substrates and different from litter. Activity of endocellulase, βgalactosidase, β-mannosidase, and β-glucosidase significantly correlated with the fungal to bacterial biomass ratio indicating the important role of fungi in their production. The results indicate the high level of specialization among litter-inhabiting fungi and differences in the substrate preference across nutritional guilds of saprotrophic fungi. While most of the litter-inhabiting fungi utilize plant biopolymers, fungal biopolymers are also frequently targeted. Keywords Temperate forest . Topsoil . Mould . Yeast . Saprotroph . White-rot . Cellulose . Chitin . Hemicellulose . Lignin
Introduction Forest soils hold one of the largest organic carbon (C) pools on Earth. While the easily available C enters the soil through roots and root symbiotic fungi, recalcitrant C comes into soil in the form of plant litter, dead microbial biomass, or animal bodies (Baldrian 2017; Berg and McClaugherty 2003). The decomposition of plant litter and dead fungal and animal material is a complex process that is key to the recycling and storage of C in soil as well as the cycling of other important nutrients (Berg et al. 2001). Decomposition of plant litter Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-020-01507-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Rubén López-Mondéjar [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Průmyslová
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