Data: Ecological dimensions of the fungal economics spectrum in soil saprobic fungi

This data file contains functional trait data of saprobic fungi, published in the manuscript "Ecological dimensions of the fungal economics spectrum in soil saprobic fungi"Abstract: Soil microbial community composition commonly shifts in response to environmental change, but the functional consequences remain unknown. To understand and predict them, trait-based frameworks are the most promising tool. Their applicability, though, is currently limited by a lack of functional trait data informing microbial life-history trade-offs, and a focus on categorical frameworks. To close this gap for an important group of soil microorganisms, we established a fungal economics spectrum in saprobic fungi based on an unprecedented trait collection for 28 isolates from a grassland soil. Ecologically relevant trait variation was best captured by a three-dimensional fungal economics spectrum: The primary explanatory axis represented a dense-fast continuum, resembling dominant life-history trade-offs in other organism groups. A second significant axis reflected mycelial flexibility, and a third one carbon acquisition traits. All three axes correlated with traits involved in soil processes, i.e., soil aggregation ability and melanin contents (1st axis), carbon-use efficiency (2nd) and litter decomposition (3rd). Since stress tolerance and fundamental niche gradients were primarily related to the dense-fast continuum, carbon cycling traits of the 2nd and especially 3rd (orthogonal) axes were independent of environmental stressors, contradicting current theoretical life-history frameworks applied to soil. In conclusion, the use of novel fungal traits not only allowed to describe a fungal economics spectrum, which can be tested at broader scales. In an ecological context, trait correlations further revealed a novel mechanism of resilience in soil processes, while the rich trait collection used here highlighted the diversity and uniqueness of individual functional trait spaces.