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. 2024 Nov;53(11):1673-1685.
doi: 10.1007/s13280-024-02041-4. Epub 2024 Jun 13.

Local climate, air quality and leaf litter cover shape foliar fungal communities on an urban tree

Maria Faticov  1   2 , Jorge H Amorim  3 , Ahmed Abdelfattah  4 , Laura J A van Dijk  5 , Ana Cristina Carvalho  3 , Isabelle Laforest-Lapointe  6 , Ayco J M Tack  5
Affiliations

Local climate, air quality and leaf litter cover shape foliar fungal communities on an urban tree

Maria Faticov et al. Ambio. 2024 Nov.

Abstract

Foliar fungi on urban trees are important for tree health, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Yet, we lack insights into how urbanization influences foliar fungal communities. We created detailed maps of Stockholm region's climate and air quality and characterized foliar fungi from mature oaks (Quercus robur) across climatic, air quality and local habitat gradients. Fungal richness was higher in locations with high growing season relative humidity, and fungal community composition was structured by growing season maximum temperature, NO2 concentration and leaf litter cover. The relative abundance of mycoparasites and endophytes increased with temperature. The relative abundance of pathogens was lowest with high concentrations of NO2 and particulate matter (PM2.5), while saprotrophs increased with leaf litter cover. Our findings show that urbanization influences foliar fungi, providing insights for developing management guidelines to promote tree health, prevent disease outbreaks and maintain biodiversity within urban landscapes.

Keywords: Air quality; Fungal communities; Fungal guilds; Leaf litter cover; Local climate; Urban trees.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Location of the 79 oak trees (Quercus robur) in Stockholm region, Sweden from which we sampled the foliar fungal community. Locations are superimposed on a background map with local a growing season maximum temperature, b growing season relative humidity, and c NO2 concentrations
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Stacked bar charts showing the relative abundance of fungal families in leaves of 79 pedunculate oak trees (Quercus robur). Families with low relative abundance (< 5%) were merged under the category “Other,” while the category “Unidentified” represents taxa for which a putative taxonomic classification is unknown
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The relationship between fungal richness, community composition, climate, air quality and leaf litter cover. A The relationship between fungal richness and growing season relative humidity. Dots represent raw data at the tree-level. B A partial canonical redundancy analysis (partial RDA) ordination plot that demonstrates the relative contribution of growing season maximum temperature, NO2 concentration and leaf litter cover to fungal community composition. The plot shows the optimal model obtained with ordistep in the vegan package. Each point represents a foliar fungal community found within a single tree-level sample, while vectors show the main environmental drivers
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Impact of climate, air quality and leaf litter cover on the relative abundance of fungal guilds. Dots represent raw data at the tree-level
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
The effect of leaf litter cover (a) and growing season maximum temperature (b) on the relative abundance of fungal families Aureobasidiaceae and Erysiphaceae, respectively. Dots represent raw data at the tree-level
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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