Fungal trait syndromes: Grinnellian niches as a starting point?

Background/Question/Methods

Fungal traits and ecophysiology is gaining momentum in the literature. Databases are being created to collate data on ecological or physiological attributes of fungi, and new studies are compiling new data on finer-scale fungal traits like hyphal architecture, chemistry or foraging strategies. Yet, these approaches focused on fungal individuals (i.e., isolates) are slow to emerge for arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, probably mostly because working with AM cultures (especially pot-based) is challenging and time-consuming. And after several decades of working on what has been more recently coined “fungal traits”, we still lack very basic items such as protocols to reproducibly measure AM fungal traits. With such data being less accessible at the moment, we argue that niche characterization through species distribution models and hypervolume calculations can provide a useful starting point in AM ecophysiology, just like Ellenberg indices and plant responses to basic treatments like mowing and fertilization initiated major conceptual developments in plant life history strategies. We explore this by synthesizing current knowledge on AM fungal biogeography and argue that important insights can be gained by merging knowledge on AM fungal niches in terms of plant partners they can colonize, and soil types they can thrive into.

Results/Conclusions