Independent effects of host and environment on the diversity of wood-inhabiting fungi

1. Dead wood is a habitat for numerous fungal species, many of which are important agents of decomposition. Previous studies suggested that wood-inhabiting fungal communities are affected by climate, availability of dead wood in the surrounding landscape and characteristics of the colonized dead-wood object (e.g. host tree species). These findings indicate that different filters structure fungal communities at different scales, but how these factors individually drive fungal fruiting diversity on dead-wood objects is unknown. 2. We conducted an orthogonal experiment comprising 180 plots (0.1 ha) in a random block design and measured fungal fruit body richness and community composition on 720 dead-wood objects over the first four years of succession. The experiment allowed us to disentangle the effects of the host (beech and fir; logs and branches) and the environment (microclimate: sunny and shady plots; local dead wood: amount and heterogeneity of dead wood added to plot). 3. Variance ...