Niche constraints drive differences between mycorrhizal fungal guilds in future range shifts

Abstract

Mycorrhizal fungi are a diverse and ubiquitous group of plant symbionts whose distribution strongly influences ecosystem function across the globe. Yet, until now, we do not have quantitative data on the range sizes of different mycorrhizal fungal taxa, limiting our capacity to forecast future shifts in community composition and function. Here, we use 115,924 DNA sequence-derived observations to map the distribution of 651 common mycorrhizal fungal taxa and forecast future changes to their range sizes. We demonstrate that climate, plant cover, and soil factors, particularly mean annual temperature, net primary productivity, and soil organic carbon, exert major control over mycorrhizal fungal distributions. Based on these drivers, the ecological niches of mycorrhizal fungi consistently differ between arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal functional guilds. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal taxa generally occupy a wider niche breadth than ectomycorrhizal fungi, occurring across larger ranges of climate, soil, plant cover, topography, and disturbance conditions. Our models also predict widespread decreases in the suitable range size of mycorrhizal fungal taxa under projected future global climates, with average ranges decreasing by 13.8% or ~2.2 million km2 under high emissions scenarios (ssp5-8.5). This decrease in projected range size will be most pronounced for ectomycorrhizal fungi, strongly linked to constraints from their smaller overall niches. By generating a global atlas of common mycorrhizal fungi and their associated environmental niche, we establish a critical baseline for widely suspected declines in global fungal biodiversity.