A few Ascomycota taxa dominate soil fungal communities worldwide

作者：Eleonora Egidi, Manuel Delgado‐Baquerizo, Jonathan M. Plett, Juntao Wang, David J. Eldridge, Richard D. Bardgett, Fernando T. Maestre, Brajesh K. Singh · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-019-10373-z · 被引用次数：757 · 研究领域：Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions、Plant Pathogens and Fungal Diseases、Lichen and fungal ecology

Despite having key functions in terrestrial ecosystems, information on the dominant soil fungi and their ecological preferences at the global scale is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed 235 soils from across the globe. Our findings indicate that 83 phylotypes (<0.1% of the retrieved fungi), mostly belonging to wind dispersed, generalist Ascomycota, dominate soils globally. We identify patterns and ecological drivers of dominant soil fungal taxa occurrence, and present a map of their distribution in soils worldwide. Whole-genome comparisons with less dominant, generalist fungi point at a significantly higher number of genes related to stress-tolerance and resource uptake in the dominant fungi, suggesting that they might be better in colonising a wide range of environments. Our findings constitute a major advance in our understanding of the ecology of fungi, and have implications for the development of strategies to preserve them and the ecosystem functions they provide.