title: Arctic fungal communities associated with roots of Bistorta vivipara do not respond to the same fine-scale edaphic gradients as the aboveground vegetation.
abstract: Soil conditions and microclimate are important determinants of the fine-scale distribution of plant species in the Arctic, creating locally heterogeneous vegetation. We hypothesize that root-associated fungal (RAF) communities respond to the same fine-scale environmental gradients as the aboveground vegetation, creating a coherent pattern between aboveground vegetation and RAF. We explored how RAF communities of the ectomycorrhizal (ECM) plant Bistorta vivipara and aboveground vegetation structure of arctic plants were affected by biotic and abiotic variables at 0.3-3.0-m scales. RAF communities were determined using pyrosequencing. Composition and spatial structure of RAF and aboveground vegetation in relation to collected biotic and abiotic variables were analysed by ordination and semi-variance analyses. The vegetation was spatially structured along soil C and N gradients, whereas RAF lacked significant spatial structure. A weak relationship between RAF community composition and the cover of two ECM plants, B. vivipara and S. polaris, was found, and RAF richness increased with host root length and root weight. Results suggest that the fine-scale spatial structure of RAF communities of B. vivipara and the aboveground vegetation are driven by different factors. At fine spatial scales, neighbouring ECM plants may affect RAF community composition, whereas soil nutrients gradients structure the vegetation.
authors.affiliation: The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), PO Box 156, N-9171, Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway.|Section for Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066 Blindern, NO-0316, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Sunil
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mundra
authors.affiliation: Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, PO Box 1172 Blindern, NO-0318, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Rune
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Halvorsen
authors.affiliation: Section for Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066 Blindern, NO-0316, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Håvard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kauserud
authors.affiliation: The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), PO Box 156, N-9171, Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway.
authors.forename: Eike
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Section for Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066 Blindern, NO-0316, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Unni
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Vik
authors.affiliation: The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), PO Box 156, N-9171, Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway.
authors.forename: Pernille B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Eidesen
mesh_terms: D001110:Arctic Regions; D044822:Biodiversity; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D016014:Linear Models; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000382:microbiology*; D019664:Polygonaceae / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil
keywords: Arctic; Bistorta vivipara; fine spatial scale; high throughput sequencing; root-associated fungi (RAF); semi-variance