Patterns in fungal community composition and decomposition
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Fungi play important roles in terrestrial ecosystems. Here, I perform four investigations (chapters two, three, four, and five) into variation in fungal communities and examine how this variation affects processes controlled by fungi. In chapter two, I use a natural dispersal gradient to evaluate whether a mechanism proposed to support diversity in plant communities whereby the dispersal ability of a species trades off with its competitive strength is applicable to communities of root-symbiotic fungi. I determine that such a tradeoff exists and maintains fungal diversity in my study system. In chapter three, I compare the effects of wildfire on soil fungal communities across two different ecosystem types, finding that ecosystems which are adapted to regular fire exhibit less change in their fungal communities when burned than other ecosystems. In chapter four, I combine modelling and meta-analysis to determine the effects of competition between different types of fungi on litter decomposition. I find that fungal competition has context-specific effects, with decreases in decomposition rate occurring only where recalcitrant litter chemistry allows root-symbiotic fungi to prevail against free-living decomposer fungi. In chapter five, I show that communities of wood-decay fungi have multiple qualitatively different links with wood decomposition rate, the relative strength of which are subject to the spatial scale at which systems are examined.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2021; ©2021 |
| Publication date | 2021; 2021 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Smith, Gabriel Reuben |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Peay, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Peay, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Thesis advisor | Jackson, Rob |
| Thesis advisor | Vitousek, Peter Morrison |
| Degree committee member | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Degree committee member | Jackson, Rob |
| Degree committee member | Vitousek, Peter Morrison |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Biology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Gabriel Reuben Smith. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Biology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/yd981nh4185 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2021 by Gabriel Reuben Smith
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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