Data from: Shrub range expansion alters diversity and distribution of soil fungal communities across an alpine elevation gradient

Global climate and land use change are altering plant and soil microbial
communities worldwide, particularly in arctic and alpine biomes where
warming is accelerated. The widespread expansion of woody shrubs into
historically herbaceous alpine plant zones is likely to interact with
climate to affect soil microbial community structure and function, however
our understanding of alpine soil ecology remains limited. This study aimed
to 1) determine whether the diversity and community composition of soil
fungi vary across elevation gradients and to 2) assess the impact of woody
shrub expansion on these patterns. In the White Mountains of California,
sagebrush (Artemisia rothrockii) shrubs have been expanding upwards into
alpine areas since 1960. In this study, we combined observational field
data with a manipulative shrub removal experiment along an elevation
transect of alpine shrub expansion. We utilized next generation sequencing
of the ITS1 region for fungi and joint distribution modeling to tease
apart effects of the environment and intra-community interactions on soil
fungi. We found that soil fungal diversity declines and community
composition changes with increasing elevation. Both abiotic factors
(primarily soil moisture and soil organic C) and woody sagebrush range
expansion had significant effects on these patterns. However, fungal
diversity and relative abundance had high spatial variation, overwhelming
the predictive power of vegetation type, elevation, and abiotic soil
conditions at the landscape scale. Finally, we observed positive and
negative associations among fungal taxa which may be important in
structuring community responses to environmental change.