A strong species–area relationship for eukaryotic soil.pdfVIP

Ecology Letters, (2007) 10: xxx–xxx doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01035.x L E T T E R A strong species–area relationship for eukaryotic soil microbes: island size matters for ectomycorrhizal fungi Abstract 1 Kabir G. Peay, * Thomas D. While the effects of habitat size and isolation have been successfully studied for macro- Bruns,1,2 Peter G. Kennedy,2 organisms, there is currently debate about their relative importance in explaining patterns Sarah E. Bergemann1 and Matteo of microbial species richness. In this study, we examine the species richness of a Garbelotto1 dominant group of eukaryotic soil microbes, ectomycorrhizal fungi, on tree islands of 1 Department of Environmental constant age and host composition that range in size from 10 to 10 000 m2. Our Science, Policy and results show that ectomycorrhizal species richness is significantly reduced on smaller and Management, University of more isolated tree islands, and the species–area slope that we observe (0.20–0.23) is California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA similar to average slopes reported for macro-organisms. Additionally, species occurrence 2Department of Plant and patterns across tree islands and investment trends in fungal fruit bodies suggest that a Microbial Biology, University of trade-off between competition and dispersal could play an important role in structuring California, Berkeley, Berkeley, ectomycorrhizal assemblages. California 94720, USA *Correspondence: E-mail: Keywords kpeay@