Journal article
Network traits predict ecological strategies in fungi
- Abstract:
- Colonization of terrestrial environments by filamentous fungi relies on their ability to form networks that can forage for and connect resource patches. Despite the importance of these networks, ecologists rarely consider network features as functional traits because their measurement and interpretation are conceptually and methodologically difficult. To address these challenges, we have developed a pipeline to translate images of fungal mycelia, from both micro- and macro-scales, to weighted network graphs that capture ecologically relevant fungal behaviour. We focus on four properties that we hypothesize determine how fungi forage for resources, specifically: connectivity; relative construction cost; transport efficiency; and robustness against attack by fungivores. Constrained ordination and Pareto front analysis of these traits revealed that foraging strategies can be distinguished predominantly along a gradient of connectivity for micro- and macro-scale mycelial networks that is reminiscent of the qualitative ‘phalanx’ and ‘guerilla’ descriptors previously proposed in the literature. At one extreme are species with many inter-connections that increase the paths for multidirectional transport and robustness to damage, but with a high construction cost; at the other extreme are species with an opposite phenotype. Thus, we propose this approach represents a significant advance in quantifying ecological strategies for fungi using network information.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 5.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s43705-021-00085-1
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- ISME Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 2
- Publication date:
- 2022-01-05
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-12-16
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2730-6151
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1230173
- Local pid:
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pubs:1230173
- Deposit date:
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2022-01-06
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Aguilar-Trigueros et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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