Location, location, location: priority effects in wood decay communities may vary between sites

Abstract

Priority effects are known to have a major influence on fungal community development in decomposing wood, but it has not yet been established whether these effects are consistent between different geographical locations. Here, beech (Fagus sylvatica) wood disks that had been pre-colonized with three wood decay basidiomycetes were placed in seven woodland sites with similar characteristics for 12-24 months, and the successor communities profiled using culture-based techniques coupled with amplicon sequencing. On the majority of sites, assembly history differed as a result of primary versus secondary resource capture only (i.e. different communities developed in uncolonized control disks compared with those that had been pre-colonized), but on certain sites distinct successor communities followed each pre-colonizer species. This study provides preliminary evidence that differences in abiotic factors and species pools between sites can cause spatial variation in how priority effects influence wood decay communities.