Data from: Trait-dependent distributional shifts in fruiting of common British fungi

Despite the dramatic phenological responses of fungal fruiting to recent
climate warming, it is unknown whether spatial distributions of fungi have
changed and to what extent such changes are influenced by fungal traits,
such as ectomycorrhizal (ECM) or saprotrophic lifestyles, spore
characteristics, or fruit body size. Our overall aim was to understand how
climate and fungal traits determine whether and how species-specific
fungal fruit body abundances have shifted across latitudes over time,
using the UK national database of fruiting records. The data employed were
recorded over 45 years (1970 – 2014), and include 853,278 records of
Agaricales, Boletales and Russulales, though we focus only on the most
common species (with more than 3,000 records each). The georeferenced
observations were analysed by a Bayesian inference as a Gaussian Additive
Model with a specification following a joint species distribution model.
We used an offset, random contributions and fixed effects to isolate
different potential biases from the trait-specific interactions with
latitude/climate and time. Our main aim was assessed by examination of the
three-way-interaction of trait, predictor (latitude or climate) and time.
The results show a strong trait-specific shift in latitudinal abundance
through time, as ECM species have become more abundant relative to
saprotrophic species in the north. Along precipitation gradients,
phenology was important, in that species with shorter fruiting seasons
have declined markedly in abundance in oceanic regions, whereas species
with longer seasons have become relatively more common overall. These
changes in fruit body distributions are correlated with temperature and
rainfall, which act directly on both saprotrophic and ECM fungi, and also
indirectly on ECM fungi, through altered photosynthate allocation from
their hosts. If these distributional changes reflect fungal activity,
there will be important consequences for the responses of forest
ecosystems to changing climate, through effects on primary production and
nutrient cycling.