• Energy Research

Climate change is leading to a species redistributions. In the tundra biome, many shrub species are expanding into new areas, a process known as shrubification. However, not all tundra shrub species will benefit from warming. Winner and loser species (those projected to expand and contract their ranges, and/or those that have increased or decreased in cover over time), and the characteristics that may determine success or failure, have not been fully identified. Here, we investigate whether current range sizes are related to plant trait values and intraspecific trait variation by combining 17,921 trait records and distribution data from 62 shrub species across three continents (>30 degrees north). In addition, we determine which traits are associated with species projected by species distribution models to expand or contract their ranges under climate change, and species that have undergone past cover changes over time. Winner and loser shrub species identified from projected range shifts generally differed from those identified from observed past cover change. We found that greater variation in seed mass and specific leaf area were related to larger projected range shifts. Projected winner species generally had greater seed mass values than ‘no change’ and loser species. However, contrary to our expectations, traits’ values and variation were not consistently related to current and projected ranges, and depended upon the future climate scenarios considered in range projections. There were no clear relationships either between cover change over time and trait values or variation. Overall, our findings indicate that abundance changes and projected range shifts will not lead to directional modifications in shrub trait composition or variation with future warming, since winner and loser species share relatively similar trait spaces based on commonly measured traits. Future research could investigate other morpho-physiological traits underpinning climatic preferences, which might better predict future range and abundance changes.

As Earth’s climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide. We found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was strongly associated with lower spatial turnover (species replacements) and higher nestedness (richness changes) components of beta-diversity across all three biodiversity facets. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional turnover was lower and nestedness higher than random expectations based on taxonomic beta-diversity in regions that experienced large temperature change, reflecting phylogenetically and functionally selective processes in species replacement, extinction, and colonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results suggest that future human-driven climate change could cause local homogenization and reduction in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of angiosperm trees worldwide.

Growing crops on marginal lands is a promising solution to alleviate the increasing pressure on agricultural land in Europe. Such crops will however be at the same time exposed to increased drought and pathogen prevalence, on already challenging soil conditions. Some sustainable practices, such as Silicon (Si) foliar fertilization, have been proposed to alleviate these two stress factors, but have not been tested under controlled, future climate conditions. We hypothesized that Si foliar fertilization would be beneficial for crops under future climate, and would have cascading beneficial effects on ecosystem processes, as many of them are directly dependent on plant health. We tested this hypothesis by exposing spring barley growing on marginal soil macrocosms (three with, three without Si treatment) to 2070 climate projections in an ecotron facility. Using the high-capacity monitoring of the ecotron, we estimated C, water, and N budgets of every macrocosm. Additionally, we measured crop yield, the biomass of each plant organ, and characterized bacterial communities using metabarcoding. Despite being exposed to water stress conditions, plants did not produce more biomass with the foliar Si fertilization, whatever the organ considered. Evapotranspiration (ET) was unaffected, as well as water quality and bacterial communities. However, in the 10-day period following two of the three Si applications, we measured a significant increase in C sequestration, when climate conditions where significantly drier, while ET remained the same. We interpreted these results as a less significant effect of Si treatment than expected as compared with literature, which could be explained by the high CO2 levels under future climate, that reduces need for stomata opening, and therefore sensitivity to drought. We conclude that making marginal soils climate proof using foliar Si treatments may not be a sufficient strategy, at least in this type of nutrient-poor, dry, sandy soil.

This repository contains the data associated with the paper Tedersoo et al. (2022) Global patterns in endemicity and vulnerability of soil fungi // Global Change Biology. DOI:10.1111/gcb.16398 Fungi are highly diverse organisms and provide a wealth of ecosystem functions. However, distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been very little explored compared to charismatic animals and plants. Here we assess endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. Endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are vulnerable mostly to drought, heat and land cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests and woodlands. We suggest that there should be more attention focused on the conservation of fungi, especially tropical root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi, unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high matching in conservation needs, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms in general. This repository contains the following data associated with the publication: Supplementary tables S1 - S6 (`Tables_S1-S6.xlsx`): - Table S1. Definition of ecoregions and assignment of samples to ecoregions - Table S2. GSMc dataset used for endemicity analyses - Table S3. Dataset used for modeling endemicity values - Table S4. Dataset used for calculating and mapping vulnerability scores - Table S5. Dataset used for calculating and mapping conservation value - Table S6. Additional funding sources by authors OTU distribution by samples and ecoregions (`Data_taxon_assignment_to ecoregions.xlsx`) Gridded maps: Conservation priorities for all fungi and fungal groups - ConservationPriority_AllFungi.tif - ConservationPriority_AM.tif - ConservationPriority_EcM.tif - ConservationPriority_Moulds.tif - ConservationPriority_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - ConservationPriority_OHPs.tif - ConservationPriority_Pathogens.tif - ConservationPriority_Unicellular.tif - ConservationPriority_Yeasts.tif The average vulnerability of all fungi and fungal groups and the model uncertainty estimates - AverageVulnerability_AllFungi.tif - AverageVulnerability_AM.tif - AverageVulnerability_EcM.tif - AverageVulnerability_Moulds.tif - AverageVulnerability_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - AverageVulnerability_OHPs.tif - AverageVulnerability_Pathogens.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_AllFungi.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_AM.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_EcM.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Moulds.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_NonEcMAgaricomycetes.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_OHPs.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Pathogens.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Unicellular.tif - AverageVulnerabilityUncertainty_Yeasts.tif - AverageVulnerability_Unicellular.tif - AverageVulnerability_Yeasts.tif The relative importance of predicted vulnerability of all fungi - RelativeImportanceOfVulnerability_AllFungi.tif Vulnerability to drought, heat, and land cover change for all fungi - Vulnerability_AllFungi_Heat-Drought-LandCoverChange.tif - VulnerabilityUncertainty_AllFungi_Heat-Drought-LandCoverChange.tif Human footprint index based on the Land-Use Harmonisation (LUH2; Hurtt et al., 2020, doi:10.5194/gmd-13-5425-2020) - `LandCoverChange_1960-2015.tif` MD5 checksums for all files (`MD5.md5`) Fungal groups: - AM, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (including all Glomeromycota but excluding all Endogonomycetes) - EcM, ectomycorrhizal fungi (excluding dubious lineages) - NonEcMAgaricomycetes, non-EcM Agaricomycetes (mostly saprotrophic fungi with usually macroscopic fruiting bodies) - Moulds (including Mortierellales, Mucorales, Umbelopsidales and Aspergillaceae and Trichocomaceae of Eurotiales and Trichoderma of Hypocreales) - Putative pathogens (including plant, animal and fungal pathogens as primary or secondary lifestyles) - OHPs, opportunistic human parasites (excluding Mortierellales) - Yeasts (excluding dimorphic yeasts) - Unicellular, other unicellular (non-yeast) fungi (including chytrids, aphids, rozellids and other early-diverging fungal lineages) Detailed processing steps can be found here: https://github.com/Mycology-Microbiology-Center/Fungal_Endemicity_and_Vulnerability This repository contains the data associated with the paper Tedersoo et al. (2022) Global patterns in endemicity and vulnerability of soil fungi // Global Change Biology. DOI:10.1111/gcb.16398 Fungi are highly diverse organisms and provide a wealth of ecosystem functions. However, distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been very little explored compared to charismatic animals and plants. Here we assess endemicity patterns, global change vulnerability and conservation priority areas for functional groups of soil fungi based on six global surveys using a high-resolution, long-read metabarcoding approach. Endemicity of all fungi and most functional groups peaks in tropical habitats, including Amazonia, Yucatan, West-Central Africa, Sri Lanka and New Caledonia, with a negligible island effect compared with plants and animals. We also found that fungi are vulnerable mostly to drought, heat and land cover change, particularly in dry tropical regions with high human population density. Fungal conservation areas of highest priority include herbaceous wetlands, tropical forests and woodlands. We suggest that there should be more attention focused on the conservation of fungi, especially tropical root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi, unicellular early-diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high matching in conservation needs, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms in general.