Cutting down trees has no negative impact on soil fungi. Little is known about the effect that logging has on life underground mold. A study led by the researcher of the University of Lleida and Agrotecnio-CERCA, Giada Centenaro, together with seven other researchers, analyzed the effects of felling trees in the distribution, composition and biomass of saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi.
The research was carried out in a Scots pine forest in the so-called “Pinar Grande” in the province of Soria, more than 12,500 hectares of forest above 1,000 meters altitude, with a Mediterranean climate with continental characteristics.
On the ground, the mold They are alive and form networks of filaments called ‘fungal mycelium’ whose mission is to search for nutrients. The mold Saprophytes decompose organic matter for nutrition (for example, from dead leaves or fallen branches). mold Mycorrhizal fungi create a symbiosis with the roots of the trees, exchanging nutrients for carbon. Thus, eliminating forest cover will cause variations in the availability of resources to nature mold, which can influence the composition and diversity of soil fungal communities. But then, Is it bad to cut down trees?
Analyze tree cover changes in soil fungi
For analyze the changes of logging on soil fungiThis work involved spatial sampling of the soil, starting in the forest and ending in the center of three cleared areas of half a hectare each. In each of the three cleared areas, 60 soil samples were taken to characterize the community of these animals mold ground. Fungal DNA and species were extracted from these 180 soil samples mold present, as well as the biomass of mold on the floor.
Centenaro’s publication shows that, although the biomass of mold are lower in the logged area compared to the forest or plot perimeter, fungal diversity has remained the same in all areas. The study found that small-scale thinning treatments, less than half a hectare, do not have a negative impact on communities in the medium term mold ground. That is, the fungal communities within the tidy areas and also at the edge of the forest they are comparable to the fungal communities that we find in the forest.
“These discoveries are important from a forest management point of view because they show that the forest can be managed without causing irreversible damage to the ecosystem,” says Centenaro, who also emphasizes the importance of new technologies to achieve these results: “20 years last year, to study mold You had to go to the forest in specific seasons and identify the visible mushrooms. With new technologies it is possible to get a much clearer and more complete picture of the composition of communities mold”.
Of the authors of the study, five are researchers from the University of Lleida assigned to Agrotecnio: Giada Centenaro, who leads this study; as well as José Antonio Bonet, Ángel Ponce, Svetlana Dashevskaya and Josu G. Alday. This research was also signed by UdL researcher Sergio de Miguel, currently at the Center for Forest Sciences and Technology of Catalonia.