Mycorrhizal symbioses and tree diversity in global forest communities
Feng Jiang, Xucai Pu, Bernhard Schmid, Peter B. Reich, Jingjing Liang, Akane Abbasi, Jesús Aguirre‐Gutiérrez, Angélica M. Almeyda Zambrano, Jan Altman, Juan Gabriél Álvarez‐González, Luciana F. Alves, Bienvenu H.K. Amani, Christian Ammer, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Kanda Naveen Babu, Meredith L. Bastian, Jean‐François Bastin, Marijn Bauters, Pascal Boeckx, Svetlana Bondarchuk, A. I. Bondarev, Francis Q. Brearley, Sophie Brennan, Jaime Briseño‐Reyes, Eben N. Broadbent, Goran Češljar, Han Y. H. Chen, Chelsea Chisholm, W. I. Choi, Emil Cienciala, Connie J. Clark, Alessio Collalti, José Javier Corral‐Rivas, Javid Ahmad Dar, Selvadurai Dayanandan, Sergio de‐Miguel, Ashaq Ahmad Dar, Géraldine Derroire, Ilija Djordjević, Tran Van Do, Jiří Doležal, Aurélie Dourdain, Teresa J. Eyre, Adandé Belarmain Fandohan, Lorenzo Frizzera, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Damiano Gianelle, M. Socorro González‐Elizondo, Elisa Grieco, David J. Harris, Andy Hector, Bruno Hérault, Cang Hui, Nobuo Imai, Andrzej M. Jagodziński, Chengjun Ji, Lin Jiang, Carlos Alfredo Joly, V.N. Karminov, Kuswata Kartawinata, Justin Kassi, Elizabeth Kearsley, Gunnar Keppel, Mohammed Latif Khan, Carine Klauberg, Kirill Korznikov, S. Kothandaraman, Florian Kraxner, Leonid Krivobokov, Dmitry E. Kucher, Amit Kumar, Anna E. Kvashnina, Gaia Vaglio Laurin, Rodrigo Vieira Leite, Moses B. Libalah, E.S. Lonkina, Huicui Lu, Shan Luo, Yuan Luo, Emma Mackintosh, Andrew R. Marshall, Rodolfo Vásquez, Radim Matula, William J. McDonald, Narayanan Ayyappan, María Guadalupe Nava‐Miranda, J Naveenkumar, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Stanisław Miścicki, Tatiana A. Moskaliuk, Liudmila Mukhortova, Sharif A. Mukul, G.J. Nabuurs, Victor J. Neldner, Radovan Nevenić, Anny Estelle N’Guessan, Michael R. Ngugi, Alain Paquette, E. I. Parfenova, Marc Parren
Abstract
Unraveling the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of species diversity is a central pursuit in ecology. It has been hypothesized that ectomycorrhizal (EcM) in contrast to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can reduce tree species diversity in local communities, which remains to be tested at the global scale. To address this gap, we analyzed global forest inventory data and revealed that the relationship between tree species richness and EcM tree proportion varied along environmental gradients. Specifically, the relationship is more negative at low latitudes and in moist conditions but is unimodal at high latitudes and in arid conditions. The negative association of EcM tree proportion on species diversity at low latitudes and in humid conditions is likely due to more negative plant-soil microbial interactions in these regions. These findings extend our knowledge on the mechanisms shaping global patterns in plant species diversity from a belowground view.