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The Iberian Peninsula comprises one of the largest boundaries between Mediterranean and Eurosiberian vegetation, known as sub-Mediterranean zone. This ecotone hosts many unique plant species and communities and constitutes the low-latitude (warm) margin of numerous central European species which co-occur with Mediterranean vegetation. Two of the main species found in this region are the Eurosiberian European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and the Mediterranean Pyrenean oak (Quercus pyrenaica Willd.). It remains unclear how the different physiological and adaptive strategies of these two species reflect their niche partitioning within a sub-Mediterranean community and to what extent phenotypic variation (intraspecific variability) is driving niche partitioning across Eurosiberian and Mediterranean species. We quantified functional niche partitioning, based on the n-dimensional hypervolume to nine traits related to resource acquisition strategies (leaf, stem and root) plus relative growth rate as an additional whole-plant trait, and the environmental niche similarity between Pyrenean oak and European beech. Further, we analyzed the degree of phenotypic variation of both target species and its relationship with relative growth rates (RGR) and environmental conditions. Plant recruitment was measured for both target species as a proxy for the average fitness. Species’ functional space was highly segregated (13.09% overlap), mainly due to differences in niche breadth (59.7%) rather than niche replacement (25.6%), and beech showed higher trait variability, i.e., had larger functional space. However, both species shared the environmental space, i.e., environmental niches were overlapped. Most plant traits were not related to abiotic variables or RGR, neither did RGR to plant traits. Both target species share similar environmental space, however, show notably different functional resource-use strategies, promoting a high complementarity that contributes to maintaining a high functionality in sub-Mediterranean ecosystems. Therefore, we propose that conservation efforts be oriented to preserve both species in these habitats to maximize ecosystem functionality and resilience.
This thesis analyses the extent of host specialisation in ectomycorrhizas, a mutualistic symbiosis between hyphae of certain fungal species and roots of forest trees. In the mycological literature it has been debated for long time, whether ectomycorrhizal communities in mixed stands are dominated by generalist or host specific fungi. In this thesis the concept of specificity guilds is introduced and applied to the evaluation of host specificity among the ectomycorrhizal fungal at the study site Kahlenberg near Eberswalde-Finow, 100 km northeast of Berlin. The study site comprised two mixed stands of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris, L.) and beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) that were supplemented by one pure stand of Scots pine and one pure stand of beech. Ectomycorrhizal fungi were distinguished by morphotyping, anatomotyping and the molecular method of ITS rDNA sequencing directly at the mycorrhized root tips. Out of 40 fungal sequence types, 31 could be determined to species level by online data base comparisons and phylogenetic analysis. Among the 18 most frequent fungal species three specificity guilds were assigned: generalist guild, pine specific gild and beech specific gild. These assignments were based on the relative association with the roots of the two hosts in the mixed stands. In summarizing the occurrences in all four stands, the majority of fungal species, i.e. 67%, belonged to host specific guilds (five pine specific species, seven beech specific species), 33% were generalists (six species). Most fungi of the host specific guilds expressed preferences, i.e. in the mixed stands they also colonized non-target roots while these host preferring fungi were absent from the pure stand of the non-target host. This interesting behaviour may indicate improved competitiveness of host specific fungi when associated with their preferential hosts. Only four out of the 18 species associated exclusively with either pine or beech roots, i.e. they are specialists. The most notable beech specialist is Laccaria cf. laccata, although L. laccata s.l. is traditionally considered a generalist. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the L. laccata complex consists of cryptic species that could belong to different host specific guilds. This demonstrates the importance of in depth delineation of fungal species by phylograms for assigning specificity guilds. The high percentage of host specific fungal species at the Kahlenberg site suggests that host specificity may play a role in role explaining ectomycorrhizal biodiversity in mixed stands. Different host species could provide niches for coexistence of ectomycorrhizal fungi. In pure stands high numbers of ectomycorrhizal fungi are more difficult to explain, because the number of possible niches decreases. Therefore, the pure beech stand was analyzed in depth, to test the hypothesis that roots of different individual beech genotypes may provide niches that explain the ectomycorrhizal biodiversity at the small spatial scale of a soil core. Fourteen ectomycorrhizal species, as determined by ITS sequencing and phylograms were patchily distributed along an 81 m long transect with ten transect points. All root segments in the three species richest soil cores (four, five and six fungal species) and the surrounding beech trees were genotyped by microsatellite PCR. In each of the three soil cores, roots of two host genotypes were present that corresponded to the two closest mature trees. However, different root genotypes did not carry different sets of ectomycorrhizal fungal species. Therefore, the hypothesis of tree genotypes contributing to ectomycorrhizal biodiversity has to be rejected for the analyzed beech stand. In the absence of other niche based explanations (soil parameters were homogenously distributed among transect points, no vertical compartmentalization), it is proposed that stochastic processes, such as spore dispersal might have contributed to the biodiversity in the analyzed soil cores of the pure beech stand.