Root endophyte and mycorrhizosphere fungi of black spruce, Picea mariana, in a boreal forest habitat: influence of site factors on fungal distributions

Abstract In a study of fungi growing in various root-associated habitats in and around Picea mariana, black spruce, in northern Ontario, Canada, an examination was made of the degree to which differences in growth sites within an area of a few square kilometers might influence the structure of root-associated filamentous microfungal populations. Picea mariana roots were collected at four strongly differing boreal forest sites: an undisturbed forest site with deep litter and humus layers; a recently regenerated forest; a clearcut, former portable sawmill site with a few small, naturally regenerated trees; and an open peat bog penetrated by roots from trees growing along the margin. Comparisons were done on isolate assemblages primarily from serially washed mycorrhizae, supplemented with comparison samples from washed root bark and adherent rhizosphere soil. The Bray the clearcut yielded the greatest numbers of Fusarium proliferatum, Umbelopsis nana and Penicillium montanense isolates, an assemblage tending to indicate exposed mineral soil; while the peat bog was typified by the presence of characteristic northern peat inhabitants Mortierella pulchella and P. spinulosum, as well as temperate peat inhabitant Penicillium lividum. A synthesis of these results with other data suggests that as a microhabitat, the mycorrhizosphere, as originally defined by Foster & Marks, is of little significance in determining the structure of filamentous fungal populations in soil influenced by the presence of ectomycorrhizal forest tree roots. Edaphic and overall microbial community conditions are much more significant, but the influence of a “symbiorhizosphere effect” exerted by certain ectomycorrhizal symbionts within the whole soil volume they occupy is also known in some cases and worthy of further investigation.