• Energy Research

AbstractFungi are highly diverse organisms, which provide multiple ecosystem services. However, compared with charismatic animals and plants, the distribution patterns and conservation needs of fungi have been little explored. Here, we examined 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. We found that the 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 predominantly vulnerable 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 stress that more attention should be focused on the conservation of fungi, especially root symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal fungi in tropical regions as well as unicellular early‐diverging groups and macrofungi in general. Given the low overlap between the endemicity of fungi and macroorganisms, but high conservation needs in both groups, detailed analyses on distribution and conservation requirements are warranted for other microorganisms and soil organisms.

Terrestrial environments of Antarctica include some of the most extreme on Earth, challenging the very existence of life itself. This article outlines briefly the geological and biological history of the continent, leading on to the conditions currently experienced, before describing its terrestrial biogeography and biota. Major determinants of terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem function are discussed and consideration given to natural and human-induced processes of ecosystem development and change.

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores, solo se referencian el que aparece en primer lugar, el nombre del grupo de colaboración, si le hubiere, y los autores pertenecientes a la UAM For more than five decades, research has been conducted at Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard, Norway, to understand the structure and functioning of High-Arctic ecosystems and the profound impacts on them of environmental change. Terrestrial, freshwater, glacial and marine ecosystems are accessible year-round from Ny-Ålesund, providing unique opportunities for interdisciplinary obser-vational and experimental studies along physical, chemical, hydrological and climatic gradients. Here, we synthesize terrestrial and freshwater research at Ny-Ålesund and review current knowledge of biodiversity patterns, species population dynamics and interactions, ecosystem processes, biogeochemical cycles and anthropogenic impacts. There is now strong evidence of past and ongoing biotic changes caused by climate change, including negative effects on populations of many taxa and impacts of rain-on-snow events across multiple trophic levels. While species-level characteristics and responses are well under-stood for macro-organisms, major knowledge gaps exist for microbes, inverte-brates and ecosystem-level processes. In order to fill current knowledge gaps, we recommend (1) maintaining monitoring efforts, while establishing a long-term ecosystem-based monitoring programme; (2) gaining a mechanistic under-standing of environmental change impacts on processes and linkages in food webs; (3) identifying trophic interactions and cascades across ecosystems; and (4) integrating long-term data on microbial, invertebrate and freshwater com-munities, along with measurements of carbon and nutrient fluxes among soils, atmosphere, freshwaters and the marine environment. The synthesis here shows that the Ny-Ålesund study system has the characteristics needed to fill these gaps in knowledge, thereby enhancing our understanding of High-Arctic ecosystems and their responses to environmental variability and change

The influence of climate change on microbial communities inhabiting the sparsely vegetated patterned ground soils that are widespread across the High Arctic is poorly understood. Here, in a four-year experiment on Svalbard, we warmed patterned ground soil with open top chambers and biannually irrigated the soil to predict the responses of its microbial community to rising temperatures and precipitation. A 1 °C rise in summertime soil temperature caused 44% and 78% increases in CO2 efflux and CH4 consumption, respectively, and a 32% increase in the frequency of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA genes. Bacterial alpha diversity was unaffected by the treatments, but, of the 40 most frequent bacterial taxa, warming caused 44–45% reductions in the relative abundances of a Sphingomonas sp. and Ferruginibacter sp. and 33–91% increases in those of a Phenylobacterium sp. and a member of the Acetobacteraceae. Warming did not influence the frequency of fungal internal transcribed spacer 2 copies, and irrigation had no effects on the measured variables. Our study suggests rapid changes to the activities and abundances of microbes, and particularly bacteria, in High Arctic patterned ground soils as they warm. At current rates of soil warming on Svalbard (0.8 °C per decade), we anticipate that similar effects to those reported here will manifest themselves in the natural environment by approximately the mid 2030s.