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Published on: March 26, 2019
Land-Use Shapes Soil Fungal Communities and Functional Guilds in Tropical Forest Ecosystems
Damilola Olanipon1,2, Margaux Boeraeve3,4, Adams Iyiola5
1Department of Biological Sciences Afe Babalola University Ado Ekiti Nigeria.
Plant-Environment Interactions (Hoboken, N.J.)
|August 6, 2026
Summary
Land-use change impacts tropical soil fungi differently. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) communities were similar across land uses, but total fungal communities varied, with undisturbed forests harboring unique species.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Mycology
- Tropical Biology
Background:
- Land-use change is a primary driver of biodiversity loss and soil degradation in tropical ecosystems.
- The specific impacts on soil fungal communities, especially arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), are not well understood.
- Understanding these impacts is crucial for effective conservation and land management strategies in tropical regions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate differences in fungal diversity and community composition across various land-use types (cropland, disturbed, and undisturbed forest) in Nigerian forest reserves.
- To test the hypothesis that intact forests support more diverse fungal communities than disturbed or agricultural lands.
- To identify how land-use change affects both general fungal communities and specialist arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
Main Methods:
- High-throughput sequencing of the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) and Small Subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA gene regions.
- Analysis of fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) amplicon sequence variants.
- Statistical analysis including ANOVA and indicator species analysis to compare fungal communities across land-use types.
Main Results:
- A total of 9240 fungal OTUs and 738 AMF variants were identified, dominated by Ascomycota and the AMF genus Glomus.
- Contrary to hypotheses, no significant differences were found in AMF community composition across cropland, disturbed, and undisturbed forest land uses.
- Total fungal, saprotrophic, and plant pathogenic fungal communities significantly differed between land-use types, with undisturbed forests showing a higher number of unique fungal OTUs.
Conclusions:
- Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) communities appear resilient to land-use change in this Nigerian context, possibly due to agroforestry practices maintaining host plant continuity.
- Total fungal communities, including saprotrophic and pathogenic fungi, are sensitive to land-use change, with specialists being lost in disturbed areas.
- Conserving diverse forest habitats is essential for protecting site-specific belowground fungal biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
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