Soil fungal communities in the alpine treeline ecotone under contrasting reindeer grazing regimes

In this study we tested how soil fungal community composition, diversity and function depended on tree vicinity and long-term reindeer grazing regime in an alpine treeline ecotone in Northern Scandinavia. The study consisted of eighteen replicates of soil samples collected directly underneath and > 3 m away from mountain birches (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) in two adjacent 55-year-old grazing regimes with or without summer grazing by reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). Soil sample collection took place in September 2019, and the samples included the upper 5 cm of the soil, including both litter and humus layers. Upon collection, the samples were freeze-dried, homogenized and characterized for fungal community composition in duplicate samples using high-throughput sequencing of ITS2 rDNA region.Analyses of the community data have been published in the article Reindeer control over subarctic treeline alters soil fungal communities with potential consequences for soil carbon storage by Henni Ylanne, Rieke L. Madsen, Carles Castano, Daniel B. Metcalfe and Karina E. Clemmensen in Global Change Biology.