Which Fungi Rot Wood Fastest? A Study at Point Reyes

Decomposition, most of it done by fungi, is the main route by which carbon held in plants returns to the atmosphere. How fast it runs therefore matters to any estimate of how much carbon a landscape can store, and that is part of using nature to address climate change. Much about what controls it is still unknown.

The study

Ecologists from Stanford collected fungal samples at seventeen places in Point Reyes National Seashore. Some were right beside pine forest; others were in coastal scrub, farther from the forest edge. They then compared how well the fungal communities from each place broke down blocks of wood.

What they found

• Near the forest, faster. Fungi from sites close to the forest edge decomposed wood faster than fungi from the coastal scrub. Both the kinds of fungi and the plants that grow near the forest edge may account for this.
• Specialists matter. Some fungi specialise in rotting wood, among them basidiomycetes, and they are especially efficient at it. Samples with a larger share of them decomposed the wood faster.
• Diversity slowed things down. Wood blocks carrying diverse, evenly mixed fungal communities decayed more slowly than blocks dominated by a handful of species. The likely reason: many species in one place compete for territory, and the competition slows decomposition.

How a community as small as the fungi on a single piece of wood affects processes across a whole ecosystem will take more study. This one adds a few new pieces to the puzzle.

Further reading

• Point Reyes National Seashore: fungi and mushrooms

Sources

• National Park Service, Bay Area Nature & Science Blog, "Study Uncovers Nuanced Ways Fungal Communities Affect Wood Decomposition." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/new-study-uncovers-nuanced-ways-fungal-communities-affect-wood-decomposition.htm
• G. R. Smith and K. G. Peay, "Multiple distinct, scale-dependent links between fungi and decomposition," Ecology Letters (2021). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.13749
• The study's map of sampling sites, credited to Smith and Peay, is not reproduced here.
• Corrected: "fungial" to "fungal".
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.