Biotic homogenization, lower soil fungal diversity and fewer rare taxa in arable soils across Europe

Banerjee, Samiran; Zhao, Cheng; Garland, Gina; Edlinger, Anna; García-Palacios, Pablo; Romdhane, Sana; Degrune, Florine; Pescador, David S; Herzog, Chantal; Camuy-Velez, Lennel A; Bascompte, Jordi; Hallin, Sara; Philippot, Laurent; Maestre, Fernando T; Rillig, Matthias C; van der Heijden, Marcel G A

doi:10.5167/uzh-253907

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Banerjee, S., Zhao, C., Garland, G., Edlinger, A., García-Palacios, P., Romdhane, S., Degrune, F., Pescador, D. S., Herzog, C., Camuy-Velez, L. A., Bascompte, J., Hallin, S., Philippot, L., Maestre, F. T., Rillig, M. C., & van der Heijden, M. G. A. (2024). Biotic homogenization, lower soil fungal diversity and fewer rare taxa in arable soils across Europe. Nature Communications, 15(1), 327. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44073-6

Abstract

Soil fungi are a key constituent of global biodiversity and play a pivotal role in agroecosystems. How arable farming affects soil fungal biogeography and whether it has a disproportional impact on rare taxa is poorly understood. Here, we used the high-resolution PacBio Sequel targeting the entire ITS region to investigate the distribution of soil fungi in 217 sites across a 3000 km gradient in Europe. We found a consistently lower diversity of fungi in arable lands than grasslands, with geographic locations significantly impacting fu