Climate, host and geography shape insect and fungal communities of trees
Iva Franić, Eric Allan, Simone Prospero, Kalev Adamson, Fabio Attorre, Marie‐Anne Auger‐Rozenberg, Sylvie Augustin, Dimitrios Ν. Avtzis, Wim Baert, Marek Barta, Kenneth Bauters, Amani Bellahirech, P Boroń, Helena Bragança, Tereza Brestovanská, May Bente Brurberg, Treena I. Burgess, Daiva Burokienė, Michelle Cleary, Juan C. Corley, David R. Coyle, György Csóka, Karel Černý, Kateryna Davydenko, Maarten de Groot, Julio Javier Díez, H. Tuğba Doğmuş Lehtijärvi, Rein Drenkhan, Jacqueline Edwards, Mohammed Elsafy, Csaba Béla Eötvös, Roman Falko, Jianting Fan, Nina Feddern, Ágnes Fürjes‐Mikó, Martin M. Goßner, Bartłomiej Grad, Martin Hartmann, Ludmila Havrdová, Miriam Kádasi Horáková, Markéta Hrabětová, Mathias Just Justesen, Magdalena Kacprzyk, Marc Kenis, Natalia Kirichenko, Marta Kovač, Volodymyr Kramarets, Nikola Lacković, Victoria Lantschner, Jelena Lazarević, Marianna Leskiv, Hongmei Li, Corrie Lynne Madsen, Chris Malumphy, Dinka Matošević, Iryna Matsiakh, Tom W. May, Johan Meffert, Duccio Migliorini, Christo Nikolov, Richard O’Hanlon, Funda Oskay, Trudy Paap, Taras Parpan, Barbara Piškur, Hans Peter Ravn, J Richard, Anne Ronse, Alain Roques, Beat Ruffner, Alberto Santini, Karolis Sivickis, Carolina Soliani, Venche Talgø, М. А. Томошевич, Anne Uimari, Michael D. Ulyshen, Anna Maria Vettraino, Caterina Villari, Yongjun Wang, Johanna Witzell, Milica Zlatković, René Eschen
Abstract
Non-native pests, climate change, and their interactions are likely to alter relationships between trees and tree-associated organisms with consequences for forest health. To understand and predict such changes, factors structuring tree-associated communities need to be determined. Here, we analysed the data consisting of records of insects and fungi collected from dormant twigs from 155 tree species at 51 botanical gardens or arboreta in 32 countries. Generalized dissimilarity models revealed similar relative importance of studied climatic, host-related and geographic factors on differences in tree-associated communities. Mean annual temperature, phylogenetic distance between hosts and geographic distance between locations were the major drivers of dissimilarities. The increasing importance of high temperatures on differences in studied communities indicate that climate change could affect tree-associated organisms directly and indirectly through host range shifts. Insect and fungal communities were more similar between closely related vs. distant hosts suggesting that host range shifts may facilitate the emergence of new pests. Moreover, dissimilarities among tree-associated communities increased with geographic distance indicating that human-mediated transport may serve as a pathway of the introductions of new pests. The results of this study highlight the need to limit the establishment of tree pests and increase the resilience of forest ecosystems to changes in climate.