Ectomycorrhizal fungi community shift along gradient from forest to clearcut : two field seasons after harvest of old growth Scots pine forests

Sammanfattning: It is known that the number of ECM decline and the community composition is altered by clearcutting. This study aims to investigate impacts at a more detailed scale. This study investigates 1) how the ECM community (composition and species richness) change along a gradient from old growth Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest to 30m out on 2-year-old clearcuttings. 2) and how the ECM community (composition and species richness) change along a gradient reaching 30 m from retention trees left on the same clearcuts. This is achieved by extracting fungi DNA from 120, respectively 75 soil samples, from 4 sites in Dalarna County, Sweden. The study shows that the number of ECM species is lower on 1–2-year-old clearcuts of old growth pine forest, compared to intact old growth pine forest, and that the number of ECM species decline along the 30 m long gradient from the forest edge. The proportion of ECM abundance compared to total fungal abundance remains constant along the same gradient. The study shows that the number of ECM species and roportion of ECM abundance compared to total fungal abundance decline along 30 m long gradients from single retention trees. The ECM species composition changes significantly with the distance from the forest edge, the change occur between 3-7 m. The ECM species composition did not change with the distance from single retention trees. The study shows that clearcutting affects fungal communities associated with old-growth forest and that single retention trees can lifeboat a few more species compared to a clearcut without retention trees but have a small effect in preserving fungal communities associated with old growth forest in clearcuts. These findings implies that reservation of ECM diversity associated with later stages of forest succession require a higher level of forest tree continuity than clear-cut management within forest management of today results in.