Abstract
In this project interactive effects of environmental perturbations and functional biodiversity of wood decay fungi will be studied. The relationship between the number of species and/or functional groups of wood decay fungi and the species persistence, efficency of decomposition and metabolic efficiency will be tested as well as competition under stable and variable abiotic regimes. The results will extend the results from previous studies on productivity and biodiversity in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to establish general principles for functional diversity across different ecological processes such as primary production and decomposition. Functional biodiversity will be studied by differentiation according to brown-rot and white-rot fungi as well as niche differentiation with respect to wood chemical quality differences in spruce and wood oak. The research is furthermore designed to evaluate the role of wood decay fungi biodiversity under perturbations of the ecosystem by means of changes in temperature, gaseous regime and other abiotic factors. Preliminary results show that decomposition decrease with increased biodiversity under constant temperature but increase under a variable temperature regime. Re-isolation of species after the preliminary experiment was significantly higher under a variable temperature regime indicating less competition in this environment.
Sweden