MycoSoil_Fungal_ITS1_eDNA_amplicons_from_soil
Boreal forests cover about 11% of the land surface of the Earth and make up the world's second largest terrestrial biome. The boreal region holds a large amount of the world's carbon, in living trees, forest vegetation, and soil microbial biomass, as well as stored in the soil as dead organic matter. Understanding their functioning is important for any models of their potential development in response to the ongoing climate change. Soil fungi are highly important in these ecosystems, having diverse functions as decomposers of organic material, mycorrhizal symbionts, as well as pathogens.The structure of fungal communities and their ecological roles can only be fully understood when studied in their natural environment, which will be done in the MycoSoil project. Our ambitious goal is to make fundamental progress in the understanding of the community ecology and functions of fungi in boreal forest soils and how the diversity, composition and activity of the fungal communities commute with the diversity and productivity of co-occurring plants.In the Mycosoil there are three different sub-parts focusing on (1) seasonality of fungi and other microeukaryotes, (2) large-scale structure and function of the boreal forest soil mycobiome and (3) small-scale structure.